Nicola Sturgeon will open the SNP conference today by announcing a bid to derail Theresa May’s Great Repeal Act.
The first minister said she would instruct her 54 MPs to try and block the legislation that “Scotland didn’t vote for”.
Such a move would put her party on a collision course with Eurosceptics as she argues against a hard Brexit.
However, she is expected to hint at forming a possible grand coalition with other parties keen to avoid the UK leaving the single market.
The prime minister has announced she will bring forward a so-called Great Repeal Act, which will override EU laws currently in force in the UK.
In the EU referendum, a majority of people in England and Wales voted in favour of Brexit, but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain.
Ms Sturgeon will say: “I can confirm today that SNP MPs will vote against the Brexit Bill when it comes before the House of Commons next year.
“That bill will repeal the legislation that enacted our EU membership. Scotland didn’t vote for that and so neither will our MPs.
“But we will also work to persuade others – Labour, Liberals and moderate Tories – to join us in a coalition against a hard Brexit: not just for Scotland, but for the whole UK.
“The Conservative Party manifesto, on which Theresa May and all other Tory MPs were elected said this: ‘We are clear about what we want from Europe. We say: yes to the single market’.
“The prime minister may have a mandate to take England and Wales out of the EU but she has no mandate whatsoever to remove any part of the UK from the single market.”
The first minister – who is opening the conference tomorrow but giving her main address on Saturday – will also take a swipe at key figures in the Leave campaign.
She is expected to say: “I suspect that many of those who voted to Leave now look at the actions and rhetoric of the Tories and think ‘that’s not what I voted for’.
“They may have voted to take back control – but I don’t imagine many of them are happy to have handed that control to Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox.”
