Labour claim they’ll change the constitution…

Andy Burnham has spent recent days enthusiastically pitching a grand vision for a written UK constitution.

It feels like just another familiar performance from Labour.

Watching a senior Labour politician promise constitutional reform for the UK is like watching a dog chase a parked car: there is a huge amount of noise and motion, but the car is not actually going anywhere.

In his recent intervention, Burnham argued that his programme of devolution strengthens the case for codifying the UK’s constitution. Yet, in the very same breath, his political circle makes clear that Scotland’s constitutional future is strictly “off limits.”

It’s double standards and shows how Westminster Labour think they can treat Scotland how they like and get away with it.

As SNP Westminster Leader Dave Doogan pointed out this week, proposing a written constitution for a multi-nation state while attempting to lock the exits is an exercise in absurdity – particularly when Northern Ireland has a locked in guarantee it can do so.

It makes no sense to support a written constitution which would have to include provisions for one constituent country to exit Westminster control whilst blocking another. It would be like treating Scotland as if it was just an English county.

Pro-independence First Ministers now lead the governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. To draft a blueprint for the UK’s legal architecture while pretending this reality does not exist is fundamentally flawed.

“Andy Burnham spent the weekend talking about a written UK constitution after telling Scotland discussion about our constitutional future is ‘off limits’,” said Dave Doogan MP.

“There are pro-independence First Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – that’s the context of this discussion, so clearly a written UK constitution is fundamentally flawed if it doesn’t spell out a path to leaving it.”

If Burnham’s constitutional crusading feels like deja-vu, that’s because the Scottish electorate has been taken down this exact path before.

Remember Sir Keir Starmer?

Back in 2020, Starmer launched his own UK-wide constitutional commission, promising sweeping powers, deep devolution, and a radically restructured state. It was sold as a transformative moment for.

But once inside 10 Downing Street, Starmer’s grand promises evaporated into the London smog.

In fact they went as far as refusing to repeal the Tory legislation they had previously called an attack on devolution.

Expecting Labour to deliver meaningful constitutional reform based on a press launch is like expecting a cement football to bounce. The promises are warm and inviting right up until they meet the heat of holding power in Westminster.

Nowhere is Labour’s constitutional unreliability more evident than in its legendary relationship with the House of Lords.

Abolishing the unelected Upper Chamber has been official Labour policy since the January 1910 general election.

That is not a typo: Labour has been promising to scrap the House of Lords for 116 years. 

Over a century later, the red benches remain intact, stuffed with political donors, party loyalists, and hereditary peers.

During his rise to power, Starmer pledged explicitly to abolish the House of Lords to “restore trust in politics“. Yet, true to form, one of his final acts as Prime Minister was to appoint another fresh batch of Labour peers to the chamber.

Promising to scrap the Lords while steadily packing it with your own appointees is like promising to go on a diet while ordering a third dessert before the wafer-thin mint – it tells you everything you need to know about Labour’s actual priorities.

The UK constitution cannot be fixed by endless rebrands, regional tinkering, or repackaged commission reports that conveniently ignore the democratic will of the nations that make up the UK.

“The Scottish Parliament has voted for the Scottish people’s right to decide, there are a record number of pro-independence MSPs in Holyrood, and opinion polling consistently shows independence is the preferred position of the Scottish people,” Dave Doogan said and added that, “Westminster cannot continue to ignore that reality.”

He also said that, “Andy Burnham is right to say Westminster has hoarded too much power, and he is right to raise the question of where power lies in these islands—but he will never address the answer to that question by denying democracy to the Scottish people.”

A written constitution that acts as a cage rather than a contract is no solution at all. Scotland’s future should be decided by the people who live here – not by the latest Labour politician trying to patch up Westminster’s crumbling foundations.