Kenny Farquharson: Wendy should stay and fight

WENDY must stay. She must not resign as Scottish Labour leader. She must dig in her kitten heels, even if she comes under intense pressure from Labour MPs at Westminster and Gordon Brown himself. If she goes, as many in her own party are urging this weekend, it will be a disaster not only for Scottish Labour but for Scottish politics as well.

Let's catch our breath for a minute and recap what's happened. The past seven days have been momentous for Scotland. We are now heading for a historic yes-or-no vote on Scottish independence, thanks to a surprise U-turn by Wendy Alexander, the Scottish Labour leader. Yesterday she backed down on her preferred timing, but her main concession to the Nationalists still stands. Put the likely date in your diaries now: Thursday, September 9, 2010. The question that has been a constant in our national life since Winnie Ewing's by-election victory in Hamilton in 1967 will finally be put, and on the answer will hang all our futures. It's a prospect to quicken the pulse, no matter what side of the argument you're on.

Last week was important in another sense as well. It marked the start of a more brutally candid relationship between Labour at Holyrood and Labour at Westminster – one in which the Scottish party isn't afraid to go it alone, even if it defies the will of colleagues on the north bank of the Thames.

I'm firmly of the opinion that both of these developments – the embracing of a referendum and greater autonomy for Scottish Labour – are good for Scotland. I'm equally sure history will show that Alexander doesn't deserve the scorn and derision being heaped on her head this weekend.

Her decision to accept the SNP's preferred option of a simple yes-or-no vote on independence caused surprise and alarm among Labour MPs last week. After all, hadn't Alex Salmond already made a concession on this, accepting that any vote on Scotland's future would also have to include the option of more powers for Holyrood within the Union, and the status quo as well? For many of her Labour colleagues her actions were inexplicable and even treacherous. Yet there is a perfectly sensible explanation that I believe vindicates her decision.

Alexander has had the foresight to realise that Scotland's future cannot be decided by a multi-option referendum – especially one in which second preference votes could determine the eventual outcome. She has realised the Scottish people simply would not stand for this. A nation's fate should be decided by a straight answer to a straight question, not by a "fancy franchise". Having come to this conclusion, there is only one option – pick up the gauntlet thrown down by the SNP on a simple yes or no on independence.

The Labour MPs currently calling for her head have obviously lost their short-term memory. Either that or they have no sense of history. Because there is a sound precedent for what Alexander has done. In time, I believe her decision will come to be regarded in the same light as another infamous referendum U-turn – the decision by Tony Blair in June 1996 that an incoming Labour Government would not set up a Scottish Parliament without first putting it to a vote of the Scottish people. At the time this was regarded by the home rule movement as an outrageous betrayal. So too was Blair's subsequent insistence on a second vote on tax powers. Yet now the 1997 devolution referendum is recognised as an essential guarantee of the Scottish Parliament's future, secured by the will of the people.

Labour MPs' real objection to Alexander's U-turn is that it opens up the prospect of the Scottish electorate voting them out of a job. It is greatly to the credit of Labour MSPs at Holyrood that they have backed Alexander, showing they have respect for the Scottish people's right to self-determination.

Much has been made of Alexander's failure to have her policy rubber-stamped by Gordon Brown. Yet what is now clear is that she did indeed try to get the PM's approval last year, but was met with a typical Brown reaction – hesitation and doubt. Was she then to simply drop the idea? No, she made the decision as Scottish leader to go ahead with what she believed to be in the best interests of her party and her country.

This was an act of political bravery, especially given her personal friendship with Brown. Ultimately she failed to bounce the PM into backing her but, despite this, she has succeeded in her primary aim of changing Scottish Labour policy. An independence referendum in 2010, with Labour support, is now a certainty.

It was brinksmanship of the most hair-raising kind, and the execution was extraordinarily clumsy. But it was the right thing to do. Who can blame her for distancing herself from Brown, who was confirmed last week as the most unpopular prime minister for 40 years? Who says she has to tie Scottish Labour to the mast of Brown's sinking ship?

One of the reasons Labour is in such a guddle is that the party has never come to terms with the full implications of devolution. Officially, Alexander isn't even Scottish Labour leader. She's only leader of the Labour group in the Scottish parliament. The real leader of Scottish Labour is Gordon Brown. This has to change.

So Wendy must stay, and fight. Scottish politics is a different place this weekend. An important principle has been established – that Scotland's future will be decided at Holyrood, not at Westminster. To borrow a now-famous phrase: bring it on.