NICOLA Sturgeon has branded Ruth Davidson a “one-trick pony” and said the Tories risked making the UK a “laughing stock internationally” after facing fresh calls from the Scottish Tory leader to drop a second referendum on independence.

The First Minister came under pressure to set out whether she would ditch another vote on the issue following the SNP’s loss of 21 seats in last week’s snap General Election.She has said she will reflect on her next steps.

Davidson used First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood to accuse Sturgeon of “double standards” for failing to act quickly to rule out another referendum, pointing out the SNP leader had “pounced” to put the issue on the table within hours of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union last June.

She highlighted a new Survation poll for a pro-Union tabloid that said 60 per cent of Scots believe the First Minister should drop her demand for a second vote.

Sturgeon repeated her position that she would proceed with “calm reflection in the national interest”.

She said: “I think what Ruth Davidson has just demonstrated there today and what she is increasingly demonstrating to the Scottish people is that she is nothing more than a one-trick pony, having to confront any issue other than an independence referendum, she is left floundering.”

The First Minister called on Davidson to set out her position on Brexit, adding “or is her position exactly what her position has been over the past year that she will do exactly what Theresa May tells her to do regardless of what is in the best interest of the country?”

Sturgeon described the Tories as a “shower of charlatans” who risk making the UK a “laughing stock internationally”, and said it is a “dereliction of duty” for the Scottish Tory leader not to focus on the beginning of the Brexit negotiations in four days.

She said: “On Monday the UK Government is about to start a formal negotiation with the EU with no mandate for its hard Brexit position, no consensus even within its own ranks about what it is trying to achieve, let alone in the country more widely.

“In short, in just four days’ time we are going to be led off the cliff edge by a Tory Government devoid of legitimacy and credibility and utterly clueless about what it is trying to achieve. That is the real and present danger to Scottish jobs, investment and living standards.

“So any politician with the national interest rather than just party interest at heart will be focused on trying to protect Scotland from a disaster that the Tories are in the process of leading us into, and that is what I am focused on doing.”

Labour’s Lewis Macdonald also called on the First Minister to stop working on a second independence referendum.

He said: “She lost a heap of seats, her flagship policy cost her votes and yet she seemed to think she had won the election. That was Theresa May last week – but Nicola Sturgeon this week seems to be equally in denial.

“Given that the First Minister has said that she wants to be involved in negotiating Brexit on behalf of the UK, will she not now recognise that she cannot be sitting at the top table and heading for the exit at one and the same time?”

Sturgeon said she thought all parties would agree Scotland should be represented in the Brexit negotiations and was “astounded” by the Labour intervention.

Earlier at FMQs Sturgeon branded an alliance between the Tory minority government and the DUP as a “grubby deal” which is not in the national interest.

The FM said she is concerned by the “disregard” shown for the peace process in Northern Ireland and called for full details of any deal to be made public.

She said: “I want to record my deep-seated concern and, I believe, the deep-seated concern of many not just in Scotland but across the UK right now at the prospect of some sort of grubby deal between the Tories and the DUP to allow Theresa May to cling to office.

“I don’t think that kind of deal, particularly if it is not completely and utterly transparent, is in the national interest in any way, shape or form.

“I think one of the most shameful aspects of the whole Brexit process from the beginning to now has been the disregard shown by many for that peace process.”

She said there is a real question on the UK Government as an impartial broker in the peace process as outlined by the Good Friday Agreement.