LABOUR today joins the battle for ''the soul of Scotland'' by lambasting the Scottish Nationalists as a party of outdated ideas, wrecking tactics, and economic ruin.

Defence Minister John Reid will also raise the temperature of Scotland's already fevered political debate by attacking the SNP over the controversial issue of patriotism.

He will draw on centuries of Scottish history to justify his claim that most Scots do not want to go it alone and are happy to maintain a dual Scottish and British identity.

Dr Reid's lunchtime lecture, to Young Fabians at Edinburgh University, marks the unofficial start of Labour's fightback against the SNP's recent success in opinion polls and by-elections, which has alarmed senior Ministers, including the Prime Minister.

The Armed Forces Minister is one of the leading figures on a Labour campaign committee to counter the Nationalist challenge.

However, he pledged yesterday that today's speech will eschew the fierce anti-SNP rhetoric which Labour politicians usually deploy in favour of a cool, measured demolition of the case for Scottish independence. It shows that Labour is becoming a more overtly unionist party in a bid to clearly differentiate itself from, and marginalise, its SNP rivals.

Dr Reid will argue that a country can be a nation without necessarily being a nation state, and claim that most Scots favour a ''utilitarian nationalism'' which simply seeks to establish what form of government best suits Scotland's needs.

''The vast majority of Scots reject the idea of a separate Scottish state and believe the well-being of the Scottish people, and the best expression of our identity, is served by being both Scottish and British'', said the Minister. ''That idea is in the mainstream of Scottish history, thought and practice.''

In the speech, the Hamilton North and Bellshill MP will claim that Labour is modern, forward-looking, at ease with the post-devolution relationship between Holyrood and Westminster, and ready to build on the large measure of freedom which Scotland has traditionally enjoyed in areas such as education and the law.

The SNP, by contrast, ''want to give us a solution to tomorrow's problems by looking back to the past. They have outdated ideas and an outdated philosophy'', he claims.

The Minister pointed to a Price Waterhouse opinion poll published yesterday as proof that Nationalist rule would mean economic instability, while Labour is the party of stability. It showed just 4% of Scottish firms believe independence would help them.

He will today seek to depict Labour as offering a dynamic cross-Border partnership within the United Kingdom while the Nationalists offer ''constant constitutional confrontation''. He will decry the SNP for ''offering a separatist agenda of referenda, wrecking tactics and using the Scottish Parliament as a battering ram to break up Britain'' rather than presenting coherent policies on basic issues such as jobs, health and education.

Dr Reid will also make clear his view that nobody has a monopoly on Scottish patriotism and that ''any attempt [by the SNP] to brand the majority of Scots who don't want separatism as somehow anti-Scottish is both patronising and insulting''.

SNP leader Alex Salmond was scornful of Dr Reid's message.

''Last month it was Gordon Brown who was going to sort out the SNP, then it was the Prime Minister, and now it's John Reid. It's an act of desperation for Labour to have to draft him in, and implies that Donald Dewar isn't up to dealing with the SNP himself''.