AS THE detail of Theresa May’s disastrous Brexit deal with Brussels was signed off by EU leaders senior figures in the SNP called for Scottish independence.

Ian Blackford, the party’s leader in Westminster, said it was now “the only option” left to Scotland.

His predecessor, Angus Robertson, said the choice for Scottish voters was either May’s “damaging Brexit deal” or becoming “a normal independent European country”.

The First Minister has promised to set out her plans on a second referendum in the “not too distant future”.

With May’s deal facing almost certain defeat in the Commons, and the consequences of that defeat as yet unknown – possibly a different deal, another general election, or EU referendum – some in the party are urging caution.

Moments after the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration were backed by the leaders of the 27 countries who remain in the EU, Blackford tweeted: “Scotland voted to remain in the EU. Our rights as EU citizens & rights to free movement throughout the EU must not be taken away. Westminster has to show respect for Scotland & our sovereign rights as defined by the claim of right. Ultimately independence the only option”.

Robertson, the party’s depute leader until earlier this year, went further. He tweeted: “Today UK PM Theresa May disregarded the 62% vote in Scotland to remain in the EU and signed away our European citizenship rights in favour of a flawed and damaging Brexit deal. We can either accept that or become a normal independent European country.”

Veteran SNP MP Angus MacNeil said the time for Scottish independence was “fast approaching”.

Writing in yesterday’s Sunday National, his colleague Philippa Whitford became the latest senior figure to add to the growing calls for a fresh vote, saying the “mechanisms by which Scotland’s lifeboat can be launched to escape this Brexit bourach,” needed to be considered.

Whitford, the SNP’s health spokesperson at Westminster, was among six SNP MPs to put their name to a letter drafted by MacNeil to the Prime Minister asking her to give her preference for a possible route to independence, whether that should be through referendum or General Election.

It’s not just members of her own party putting pressure on the First Minister, a spokesman for the Scottish Greens told The National, that Sturgeon needed to act.

The spokesman said: “The First Minister promised a precise timetable for giving people a choice over our country’s future at the end of the negotiation period. That time has come. Scotland deserves a chance to opt out of this constitutional and economic chaos.”

Speaking on the BBC’s Marr programme earlier this month, the First Minister said: “I will come forward with my views on what I think on the appropriate next steps for Scotland specifically in the not too distant future, but I think it’s reasonable to allow the dust to settle.

“We could be facing another General Election, we could be facing another Brexit vote.

Sturgeon added: “One thing is beyond any doubt – the implications, the consequences of Scotland not being in independent have been very stark in the last few months, and particularly in the last week.”

Meanwhile, new analysis conducted for Women for Independence showed that Sturgeon’s “style of government,” along with the chaos of Brexit and the SNP’s policies on childcare were attracting women to independence.

In 2014, female voters rejected independence, with 57% backing a No vote.

But the turnaround was discovered in research on No-voting women carried out by WFI, starting before the 2014 vote, then following the Brexit referendum, and carrying on to more recent months.

WFI national co-ordinator Margaret Young told Scotland On Sunday that many women felt disengaged by Yes supporters in 2014.

“Even if they agreed with what they were saying, they didn’t necessarily feel that it related to them,” she said.

Young said many Scots women who voted No in 2014 were remain voters in 2016 and are now more inclined to back Yes.