Scotland is suffering from "a perpetual form of constitutional seasickness" due to the SNP government's continued talk of a second independence referendum, a veteran Conservative has said.

Baroness Goldie, a former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, hit out at the nationalist "obsession" with independence and the "opportunism" of the SNP repeatedly raising the prospect of a second vote on this as a result of the Brexit decision.

She condemned the Scottish First Minister, telling Nicola Sturgeon: "Your responsibility is to do what is right for Scotland and your relentless fermentation of constitutional upheaval and discord is deeply damaging to Scotland.

"It is nationally unsettling, for investors it is unnerving and for the millions of people in Scotland who just want you to get on with what you were elected to do, it is unacceptable and upsetting. It is like a perpetual form of constitutional seasickness."

While the UK as a whole voted to leave the European Union in 2016, almost two thirds (62%) of voters north of the border voted to remain, with Ms Sturgeon saying in the aftermath of this that another independence vote was "highly likely".

But Baroness Goldie said Ms Sturgeon was now using her vote to remain in the EU to try to split apart the UK.

The Tory said: "My remain vote, for that's how I voted, seems to have been borrowed by Nicola Sturgeon. She says my vote for the United Kingdom to remain in the EU is her mandate to break up the United Kingdom, to seek independence for Scotland and then try to negotiate Scotland back into the EU.

"Let me say to her my vote is nothing of the sort. The union I believe in and value above all others is the union of the United Kingdom.

"If the United Kingdom votes to leave the EU, I stay in the United Kingdom union and I leave the European Union."

She continued: "My simple message to Nicola Sturgeon is if you have a referendum respect the result. I respect the EU referendum result, it is high time you started respecting the independence referendum result.

"I say to her, stop playing games with voters like me who believe in the United Kingdom, pretending you have some kind of mandate to break it up. You do not.

"Your opportunism is born out of your desire to keep your party's obsession with their rejected option alive. Well get real."

Baroness Goldie hit out at the Scottish Government, accusing ministers of "falling down on the job at home, disrespecting the 2014 referendum result and stoking up resentment, friction and uncertainty".

She declared: "Only we Conservatives can be trusted with the Union. We shall never let it down, we shall challenge all who threaten it and with every last breath we possess we shall fight for it."