DOMINIC Cummings resurfaced this week in a revealing interview with Laura Kuenssberg to confirm that the UK is no longer a democratic state. He asserted that “we planned to get rid of Johnson soon after he became prime minister”.

Now, we all know the British constitution is ramshackle. Like a cheap suit, it fits only where it touches. But Cummings makes clear even the small contact it previously had to ethical standards of behaviour and moral principles is now finished. In its place, is a system that is openly manipulated and exploited by a few charmless individuals.

These few include the PM’s present wife. According to Cummings, she makes ministerial and other appointments – many of whom he describes as “clowns”. Quite how the “clowns” are distinguished from the other incompetents, he did not venture.

Consider this, we have hugely expensive buildings and structures that previously claimed to be bulwarks of democracy in the British state. We have the House of Lords – the world’s second largest unelected chamber in the world. Its members now include Ruth Davidson who strolled into the House of Lords this week to make and unmake laws that affect us all. And she will do so secure that she need not offer herself to the judgement of the people ever again, all the time raking in £300 per day attendance money.

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In her new sinecure she joins Baron McInnes of Kilwinning, a former Edinburgh Tory councillor, who was offered a peerage “as he walked along Princes Street”. Lord Kilwinning is also the latest recruit to the anti-independence Union Unit at Westminster.

None of these established structures has prevented the present Tory government from toppling the British constitution and replacing it with rule by a capricious and mendacious few. All the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men could not put this Humpty Dumpty “constitution” back together again. Not that they tried. Sadly, it is hugely unlikely we will ever see a return to democratic governance in the UK.

For decades, abolition of the House of Lords was a Labour promise. Now, they are happy to appoint people to the body they once pledged to end. It is stretching the bounds of credibility to imagine they will ever return to that promise.

In short, there is no great clamour for constitutional change south of the border amongst politicians. So docile have they become that even columnists of sympathetic newspapers are arguing for change. Understandably as they are coming to this debate late in the day, these ideas are somewhat unformed. Times columnist, David Aaronovitch, says that; “unless we start planning a radical new constitutional settlement, the United Kingdom looks certain to splinter”.

To add to this litany of oppression, a new Official Secrets act means journalists in the UK could be jailed for 14 years for reporting on public interest matters.

When all of these manoeuvrings are taken together, we may be witnessing an end of empire event. As empires crumble, they often strike out in all directions simply to find a reason to exist. If they do not have an enemy, they will invent one. The British people may become the enemy of the British state. And these people do not have a constitution worthy of the name to protect them.

Watching these alarming signs of what befalls a country without a strong constitution, what has been the reaction of the SNP? Put kindly, it is sluggish. Perhaps the party ought to recall its main aim when it was formed almost 90 years ago. “The restoration of Scottish sovereignty by restoration of full powers to the Scottish Parliament, so that its authority is limited only by the sovereign power of the Scottish people to BIND IT WITH A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION”.

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In governing circles, it seems that a Scottish constitution is viewed like the “icing on the cake” to be dealt with in due course and maybe after independence. If this is so, it is sad evidence of a paucity of thinking. In almost every other state in the world a constitution is fundamentally important because it represents its very ethos.

What should any wavering Yes supporter or soft No voter want to see more than a clear commitment that their rights will be safeguarded in any new state? What could conceivably be more important than a new state stating a clear contract with its citizens?

Many would argue that spelling out these protections is more pressing than developing a ten-year economic strategy, for instance. To state the obvious how does one know what sort of growth is desirable if one has not already committed to the values and moral principles that underpin it?

Wednesday’s guest on the TNT show is independence activist Fiona Campbell