DAVID Mundell has told Theresa May that a no-deal Brexit will “create the conditions for a second independence referendum”.

A senior government source told the Sunday Times that during last week’s seven hour Cabinet meeting, the Scottish Secretary told ministerial colleagues: “The turmoil it would bring is exactly what the nationalists want to create the conditions for a second independence referendum.”

The UK could be just five days away from crashing out of Europe with no-deal, unless the EU27 and the UK agree an extension this week.

It echoes warnings made by the Tory last year when he said a “chaotic Brexit” would assist the SNP in their push for independence.

Mundell supports May’s deal, and abstained when the Commons tried to find an alternative using indicative votes.

May has previously insisted that “now is not the time” for a new vote on independence, and last month, during a trip to Scotland, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in the UK Government would “of course” refuse to sign off on a Section 30 order that transfers powers to Holyrood to allow a referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon is expected to update the country on her plans for a second independence referendum in the coming weeks, once the “fog” of Brexit has lifted.

Yesterday, Scottish Green party co-convener Patrick Harvie warned the First Minister of the “real danger in waiting too long on the hope that clarity, which may never come, is just round the corner.”

“To pass legislation for a referendum takes some time. If we wait too long, that won’t be doable in this current session of Parliament,” he told the Herald on Sunday.

Asked if he wanted another independence referendum before 2021, he replied: “If this Brexit process is happening, I would like to see it.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Wilson, the author of the SNP’s Growth Commission has said that independence will take “significant effort but that effort will be worth it.”

Speaking to the BBC, Wilson said: “The level of integration we’ve got with the rest of the UK – over 300 years in financial services, in wages and pensions and mortgages – is pretty unique, so we have to tend and steward the transition towards the country we want to become.

“We want to be fast growing, we want our trade to diversify from over-dependence on one of the slowest growing economies in the developed world.

“But transitions need to be managed and they need to be managed honestly so that people can say as we’re going through it we knew this was what was going to happen.

“One of the big lessons from Brexit is effectively how not to do change, how not to manage transitions.”

He denied that his report is what Labour and other critics have described as a “cuts commission” that will lead to a decade of austerity for Scotland.

Wilson told the BBC: “We need to win by persuading people that are currently not convinced by the case, and all of the polling evidence is suggesting they are persuaded by a message that says the case for Britain is collapsing and the case for Scotland is developing,” he added.

“We have an argument that independence will be an effort. Money doesn’t drop out a tree, Rome isn’t built in a day, nothing falls in your lap. That’s not real life. You don’t win the lottery.

“What happens is you get a tool box and the ability to work, and that work will be worth it. It’s going to be an effort, it’s going to be a challenge, but all of the evidence of history in the small best performing countries in the world is that that challenge is worth it.”