NICOLA Sturgeon has underlined her support for independence saying this week’s “debacle” by the “Tory-DUP UK Government” over Brexit proves the need for Scotland to determine it’s own future.

The First Minster’s comments came as she was pressed in Holyrood whether she would support a second public vote on any deal agreed between Britain and the European Union.

Responding to Scottish LibDemf leader Willie Rennie, she did not rule out the possibility of backing such a referendum, before adding: “The real lesson from this whole debacle for those of us in Scotland is that as long as we continue to allow our future to be in the hands of Tory Governments at Westminster, rather than in our own hands, we will always be at the mercy of reckless decisions taken by them.

READ MORE: Tusk to intervene as May hears border deal fate after failed Northern Ireland deal

“The sooner we are in control of our own future here in Scotland the better. This week has proved that.”

During her exchange with Rennie the First Minister called for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to “get his act together” to help build a cross party case at Westminster for remaining in the European single market after Brexit. She told MSPs at First Minister’s Questions that the case for the whole of the UK remaining in the single market could receive the backing of a majority of MPs if Corbyn gave his support to it.

Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a race against time to make progress in Brexit talks after Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which props up her minority Government scuppered a deal aimed at resolving the Irish border issue on Monday.

In a major embarrassment, the Prime Minister had to be pulled away from her lunch with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to take a call from the angry DUP leader Arlene Foster, who had not been told the terms of the deal.

Sturgeon said there was now an opportunity for those in opposition to unite behind a “soft” Brexit, which would see the whole of the UK stay in the single market and customs union.

She blasted the UK Government as the most “incompetent” she has seen in her lifetime, and said: “This week, the Tory United Kingdom Government — strictly speaking, it is a Tory-DUP UK Government — has been shown to be dissembling, mendacious and totally and utterly incompetent.

“It is not just leading this country over a Brexit cliff edge, it seems determined to do so blindfold. I do not think that we have seen a more incompetent UK Government in my lifetime, and that is saying quite something.”

She continued: “I think the priority now, in my view, has to be to unite those who think that the most common sense compromise option now is for the UK as a whole to remain within the single market and the customs union.

“I believe if Labour was to get its act together, if Jeremy Corbyn was to get his act together, I believe that position could command a majority in the House of Commons.

“Let’s try and unite all of those of that opinion to stop these incompetent, reckless, ideological Tories taking the UK and Scotland with it off a Brexit cliff-edge.”

Rennie called on Sturgeon to get behind the case for another referendum on the Brexit deal.

“The Conservatives are weak, split from top to bottom, in hock to the DUP,” he said.

“Surely the best way out of this is to give the British people the final say.

“The First Minister can help build the momentum for a new vote across the UK, she can persuade others.”

Sturgeon said: “That, I think, is a decision for later.

“It may well be that the case for giving people across the UK another opportunity to have their say on the issue of Brexit becomes difficult to resist, but I think there is a more immediate necessity.”

The First Minister’s comments came as a poll earlier this week revealed support for independence had risen to 47 per cent — two points ahead of the level it was at in the 2014 referendum, and despite the presence of a campaign.

They also follow her speech to senior SNP figures at the weekend, revealing her party’s growth commission report would be used to help make the case for independence. She told members of the party’s national council in Perth last Saturday the document would be published in early 2018.

“She said it would be a catalyst for relaunching the case for independence,” one of the senior members present the Perth meeting told The National.