SCOTLAND’s Minister for exiting the European Union has called for an urgent meeting with the UK Government over the prospect of a new soft Brexit plan.

Mike Russell said Theresa May’s position after Thursday’s General Election was untenable and her policy on leaving the EU — which would remove the UK from the single market and customs union — should be “scrapped”.

He insisted the Scottish Government’s proposals for remaining in the single market after Brexit remained in play and were a good starting point for fresh discussions this week at the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations.

Russell repeated First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s stance that the SNP would reflect on plans for a second independence referendum amid calls by the anti-independence parties for it to be taken off the table after the party lost 21 seats.

But he said: “To some extent everything is off the table” until stability was restored and the Brexit situation addressed as he echoed Sturgeon’s support for an alliance of progressive parties to offer an alternative to a new Tory Government propped up by the DUP.

He told the BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland programme: “It’s extremely important that the entire Brexit policy from Theresa May is scrapped and they start again.

“I have to say the first part of that is to persuade Theresa May that clinging to Downing Street is not a sensible idea. She has presided over chaos over the last year, the result of this election shows that people don’t trust her. I don’t think her position is tenable.

“It follows then that there needs to be a look at everything again and that includes the Brexit policy.”

Russell said the Government believed its Scotland’s Place in Europe document, which set out plans for the UK to stay in the single market after exiting the EU, was “still on the table” despite UK Brexit Secretary David Davis dismissing it as undeliverable in April.

The document also sets out plans for Scotland to remain in the single market should the rest of the UK leave.

Publishing the plans last year Sturgeon described them as a “compromise” arrangement reflecting both the No vote in 2014 and the vote to remain in the EU last June.

A second referendum was put on the table as a third option after Davis rejected the proposals on the same day May triggered Article 50.

But the Scottish Government has put them on the table again for fresh consideration in the new political circumstances.

EU leaders have said they are open to the Scottish Government’s proposals but they must be brought to the negotiating table.

Russell said “We do believe [the document] contains some important solutions. You’ve got to remember it started with the premise that the whole of the UK should stay in the single market and that I’m pleased to see is something that’s now back on the agenda.

“As a government we intend to continue to promote Scotland’s Place in Europe, that document, and if others wish to join us to do so they’d be very welcome. If the Tories have genuinely in Scotland changed their view on Brexit then I’d be very pleased that that is the case but the forum to take this forward is through the joint ministerial committee.”

Pressed on the issue of a second independence referendum, he added: “The proposal for a referendum was based on one set of circumstances only in the election which we won in 2016 and that was if Scotland was to be dragged out of Europe against its will that would be the circumstance, that’s exactly the circumstance we have found ourselves in.

“Now we go forward looking at this and saying what is going to happen with Brexit? So to some extent everything is off the table in the sense that Brexit has to be sorted now and it has to be sorted or start to be sorted this week. So that’s the urgent priority.”

James Kelly MSP, who managed Scottish Labour’s General Election campaign, told the same programme the SNP had to take indyref2 is off the table and added that they need to be “taking responsibility for the issues that matter in Scotland, for example child poverty.”

Kelly said the party’s seven Scottish MPs would “play an active role in Jeremy Corbyn’s team” adding “at the forefront of that there needs to be a lead person speaking for Scotland in the shadow cabinet”.

In a statement issued after the programme, Jackson Carlaw, Scottish Conservative deputy leader, said a second independence referendum had to be taken off the table immediately.