Nicola Sturgeon urges Theresa May to 'stop blaming everybody else and start listening' on Brexit

However, Leo Varadkar, the Irish premier, made clear that in such circumstances Ireland and the UK would have to negotiate a new agreement on customs and regulations, which meant “full alignment; so there will be no hard border".

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As MPs continue to table a range of proposals on the way forward on Brexit ahead of the next key Commons vote on Tuesday, Mrs May this afternoon will hold a trilateral in No 10 with Ms Sturgeon and her Welsh counterpart Mark Drakeford. Also attending will be David Lidington, the PM’s de facto deputy, and Michael Russell, the Scottish Government’s Constitutional Relations Secretary.

Ahead of the meeting, the FM expressed exasperation at her host, declaring: “The UK is in the midst of the most serious political crisis in many decades and it is entirely a mess of the Prime Minister’s own making. With time running out, Theresa May needs to stop blaming everybody else and start listening.”

Ms Sturgeon said the PM’s current strategy was to rule out the possible – extending the Article 50 period – while pursuing the impossible – changes to the Irish backstop.

“At today’s meeting I will be making clear to the Prime Minister that it is she who needs to change her position; not everybody else.”

The FM claimed Scotland’s voice and the nation’s overwhelming vote to remain in the EU had been “completely ignored at every turn,” noting how the UK Government had cancelled tomorrow’s Joint Ministerial Council on Brexit at the last minute; a move, she said, which “did not inspire any confidence they are keen to hear others’ views”.

Whitehall sources explained that given the seniority of those attending the No 10 talks, it was thought the JMC meeting was not needed.

Ms Sturgeon again called for the Brexit clock to be stopped through a formal extension of Article 50 to allow a People’s Vote to take place.

“With Brexit only a matter of weeks away and with MPs emphatically rejecting the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, both Labour and the Tories must agree to put the question to the people,” she argued.

The PM/FMs’ meeting is part of a wider engagement Mrs May is having on Brexit. On Tuesday, she spoke to business leaders, and tomorrow she will hold talks in Downing St with union leaders, including Len McCluskey, Unite’s General Secretary, who is a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader has boycotted cross-party talks on Brexit, believing them to be a “PR sham”.

In Brussels, Margaritis Schinas, the European Commission spokesan, was asked if the EU’s commitment to the Northern Irish peace process would last "whether or not there is a deal".

He replied: "If you like to push me and speculate on what might happen in a no-deal scenario in Ireland, it's pretty obvious, you will have a hard border.”

But he stressed: “Of course, we are for peace; of course, we stand behind the Good Friday Agreement but that's what a no-deal scenario would entail."

Elsewhere, another European Commission source said there was "nothing new" in what Mrs May was proposing but, in a reference to the Spice Girls' classic pop hit Wannabe, added: “We expect the United Kingdom to tell us what they want, what they really, really want."

Yesterday at the weekly Cabinet, Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, urged the PM to strengthen her negotiating position with the EU by seeking Parliament’s support for a time-limit on the Irish backstop.

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It is thought that among the flurry of amendments, one is expected to be tabled to this effect.

David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, also pointed out that many of his colleagues felt the Government was “sleep-walking towards a no-deal and sleep-walking towards an economic disaster”. He has previously hinted that he would resign if Britain left the EU without an agreement.

Meanwhile, the Labour leadership distanced itself from backing a second referendum. Rebecca Long Bailey, the Shadow Business Secretary, made clear her party's amendment to next Tuesday’s debate had been carefully written and did not tie Labour into backing a People’s Vote "in any way".

While leading Labour supporters of a People’s Vote campaign said they expected Jeremy Corbyn to eventually throw the party's weight behind a second EU referendum, Labour MPs from Leave constituencies were said to be furious about a perception the party was moving behind a People’s Vote. One said: “We’re p****d off. Just because we’re silent, people forget we’re in the majority. It’s like our working class communities are being ignored.”

As several amendments were put down, some overlapped in calling for an extension to the Article 50 process to prevent a no-deal outcome.

Conservative backbencher Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General, tabled one to enable MPs to take control of parliamentary business a day every fortnight in February and then day a week in March until Brexit Day.

Backed by MPs from across Parliament, including former Tory ministers Justine Greening and Sam Gyimah and Labour's Chris Bryant and Chuka Umunna, it would allow debate of up to six-and-a-half hours and an amendable motion.

However, the Buckinghamshire MP removed a controversial passage that would have allowed a motion by minority of 300 MPs - from at least five parties and including 10 Tories - to be debated to to allow for indicative votes on where to go next.

In other developments:

*Brexit-backing businessman Sir James Dyson is to relocate the Dyson head office from the UK to Singapore. Despite the company saying the move had nothing to do with Brexit, the pro-EU Best for Britain campaign said it could “only be seen as a vote of no-confidence in the idea of Brexit Britain”;

*for “operational and accounting reasons,” P&O Ferries is to re-flag all its ships, which operate on the English Channel, to sail under the Cyprus flag ahead of Brexit;

*£1 million has been spent on fridges to be used by the Health Department to stockpile medicines in the event of a no-deal Brexit while nearly 400 civil servants have been cut from the department since the 2016 EU referendum and

*a poll conducted by the pro-People’s Vote Tory campaign Right to Vote suggested nearly 70 per cent of people in Scotland and almost two-thirds of people in Northern Ireland believe Brexit could lead to the break-up of the UK. Over half of the respondents in both Scotland and Northern Ireland said they wanted a second EU referendum. Both voted to remain in 2016.