SNP MPs could try and veto Brexit in Parliament, Nicola Sturgeon will tell her party’s conference today.

In a move that will undoubtedly anger Brexiteers, the First Minister will use her opening speech to attack the “xenophobia” of the Tories, and claim June’s referendum result did not give the Government a mandate to take the country out of the single market.

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Sturgeon will warn the Prime Minister that her 54 MPs will seek to form a coalition with Labour, Liberals and moderate Tories to defeat the Government’s slim majority and stop the Great Repeal Bill from passing, unless the country stays in the single market.

“That bill will repeal the legislation that enacted our EU membership. Scotland didn’t vote for that and so neither will our MPs,” Sturgeon will tell the party faithful today.

The FM is expected to say that Leave supporters would “look at the actions and rhetoric of the Tories and think ‘that’s not what I voted for’.”

“They may have voted to take back control – but I don’t imagine many of them are happy to have handed that control to Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox.

“They certainly didn’t vote to throw economic rationality out of the window. They didn’t vote to lower their own living standards or to sacrifice jobs and investment. They didn’t vote for our businesses to face tariffs or for holiday-makers to need visas. They didn’t vote for the scapegoating of foreigners.”

During her speech, she will seek to contrast the approach of the Scottish Government with their Westminster counterparts.

Scotland, she will say, is a “country where we cherish diversity and value people for the contribution they make to our society – not one where we judge them on the country of their birth or the colour of their passport.”

May’s party conference was a “disgrace,” that “shames the Tory party and all who speak for it,” she will add.

Sturgeon will warn delegates that the the right wing of the Tory party is “now in the ascendancy” and using the Brexit vote “as licence for the xenophobia that has long lain under the surface – but which is now in full view.”

The Great Repeal Bill, announced at the start of October, will convert existing EU laws and regulations into UK law. Which is exceptionally complex and would involve legislation over devolved matters. The Scottish and UK governments have clashed over whether this would require the approval of Holyrood.

If the bill was defeated, it would not stop the UK leaving the EU but it would become much trickier, with a huge amount of legal uncertainty. But it looks increasingly like the only meaningful vote MPs may have on the UK leaving the EU.

Yesterday in the Commons, the Government reaffirmed its opposition to a vote on triggering Article 50, the process necessary to start negotiations.

Brexit minister David Davis came under pressure from his own side, with Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, saying the convention was for the Commons to have a vote.

Grieve was one of seven former government ministers expressing concern about May’s Brexit strategy.

Ex-Chancellor Ken Clarke told Davis: “We still have got no offer of a vote and we need some clarity about the policy the Government’s going to pursue because the Government is accountable to this House.”

The SNP’s Stephen Gethins said: “I’m a new member of parliament, but maybe other members can tell me: is it normal that a secretary of state can spend so much time at the despatch box without telling us anything. He spent a lot of time there and I’m none the wiser about where we are at the moment. It seems remarkable.”

Meanwhile, both the Scottish Tories and the Scottish Lib Dems said Sturgeon should use conference to “dump her threat of a second referendum on independence”.

Tory MSP John Lamont said: “It’s deeply disappointing that instead of setting out a constructive plan on how she intends to manage the Brexit process, Nicola Sturgeon is intent on using her party conference to play to the SNP gallery.”

Lib Dem Alistair Carmichael agreed : “The First Minister’s obsession with independence weakens efforts to protect the benefits of our place in the EU. She is running away from hard work and risks letting Boris and his colleagues off the hook.“

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale accused Sturgeon and the SNP of breaking promises that the 2014 independence referendum result would stand for a “generation” and was a “once in a lifetime opportunity”.

She said: “There have been far too many broken promises from the SNP over the past decade; Nicola Sturgeon should not break her promise on a second independence referendum.”