Here's how Sir Keir Starmer should deal with the SNP after election - Euan McColm

This achievement is something John Swinney talked about when he succeeded Humza Yousaf as SNP leader in May. The First Minister bragged about his role on the cross-party Smith Commission, established after the referendum with responsibility to discuss and agree an enhanced devolution settlement.

Swinney can afford not to be modest. Those involved with the Smith process say he was the dominant figure, arguing forcefully for new powers on welfare and taxes and overruling his fellow nationalists when he felt their demands might not be politically helpful.

When Swinney’s chums in the Scottish Greens, represented on Smith by Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman, wanted all legislation on abortion law devolved to Holyrood, he was forceful in his insistence to them that this would be a mistake. Why should the Scottish Government take on all the controversy and potential for public anger surrounding abortion legislation if it didn’t come as part of full independence? Westminster could keep that one, for now.

Recently, the SNP has tried with - if its falling polling numbers are any indication - severely limited success to convince us that the Scottish parliament is victim to a “Westminster power grab”. Devolution is under attack, they said, and only John Swinney could defend the will of the Scottish people. Yes, barely moments ago, only Humza Yousaf could defend that will but the thing to remember is that only one politician can defend all of the things - basically everything - under threat from or attack by the UK Government and that is whoever happens to be leader of the SNP.

The truth is that not only has the Scottish Parliament accrued more powers, indeed become considerably more muscular, under the SNP but that we have grown accustomed to this being an ongoing process.

Before a vote had been counted in 2014, the Unionist side had promised new powers for Holyrood and the SNP has continued - with success - to push for more.

There are some in Scottish Labour’s ranks who believe that, after Sir Keir Starmer leads his party to victory on Thursday, he should reach some new accommodation with the SNP, find some way of putting the constitutional argument to sleep for a period.

Those people - and I include among their number both MSPs and activists - are entirely wrong.

Nothing but independence will ever be enough for the SNP and, while the prospects of a second referendum may have faded into the distance for now, the party can be expected to cook up grievance at every opportunity.

If Sir Keir Starmer is the UK next Prime Minister, he should buck expectations and declare that, when it comes to devolution, enough is quite enough for the time being.

There is absolutely nothing for Labour to gain by pandering to the nationalists on the constitutional question. Look at what happened with the Smith Commission. Swinney got just about everything the nationalists demanded and the SNP was crying “betrayal” before the ink was dry on the agreement.

Instead, a healthy number of Scottish MPs combined with the powers and influence of the Scotland Office, should embolden Labour to take decisions affecting Scotland without feeling the need to tug their forelocks before an SNP that will never approve of anything they do.

Of course, Prime Minister Starmer should be polite - suffocatingly so - in his dealings with First Minister Swinney but he should also make it part of Labour’s mission to show that Scotland truly can and does benefit from its place in the union.

A bold Labour Secretary of State for Scotland will announce major new infrastructure projects and continue to push for increased investment north of the border. And he or she will make these announcements without caring about the SNP’s predictable response (anyone for power grabs before lunch?).

The SNP is not the dominant political force it once was. And the loss of a substantial number of seats - as polls predict - next week will do little to boost morale in a party bracing itself against the possibility of defeat for the first time in almost two decades.

For years, the SNP has called the political shots in Scotland. The next Labour run Scotland Office should swiftly assert itself as the country’s champion in government and then show how the Union continues to be of crucial benefit.

Time and again over recent years, Unionist parties have reacted to Nationalist election victories by trying to placate the beast. But the beast bites them every time and it will do so again if Anas Sarwar and Sir Keir Starmer decide to waste time thinking about the devolution settlement.

The SNP, which first came to power by winning over even Unionist voters, now struggles to convince many once-loyal supporters that it will ever achieve its objective of Scottish independence.

Yet, already I can hear them, the new (rather than New) Labour special advisers and the policy wonks desperate to fix the constitution once and for all with their almost-devo-max and bold new agreements and all the other things that will never satisfy the SNP.

Interminable constitutional wrangling over the last decade and a half has done Scotland absolutely no good whatsoever. It has got in the way of good government and effective reform.

The next UK government can comfortably afford not to pander to the demands of a severely weakened SNP for greater devolution.

Wouldn’t it be reassuring if this general election campaign marked - for a time, at least - the end of fruitless talks on more Holyrood powers and the return of clear focus on the delivery of competent government?