Image source, bbc

A former member of Nicola Sturgeon's Cabinet said that he voted for Brexit and that other SNP MSPs did the same.

Alex Neil said the Scottish government's drive to be "run by Brussels" risked alienating him and others in the SNP.

Mr Neil  stepped down as social justice secretary in May .

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon questioned whether Mr Neil was right about other SNP MSPs voting Leave.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, external , Alex Neil, who served as infrastructure secretary as well as health secretary, said that he decided 10 days before the  23 June poll  to back Brexit.

Tory MSP Maurice Golden says if the 2014 result had gone the other way he would have accepted it and would have done everything in his power to make Scotland a strong independent country.

Mr Golden says, by calling another independence referendum, the Scottish government is ignoring the democratic will of the Scottish people.

He says the Scottish government said it would be a once in a generation vote and the Scottish people do not want another independence referendum.

"The SNP obsession with independence has already cost Scotland a decade of failure," he says. 

"Let me tell the SNP this, I am Scottish and you don't speak for me," he adds.

Mr Golden says the SNP must put Scotland first. 

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Ms Hyslop says the Scottish government's proposed timetable for indyref2 is logical and sensible.

The external affairs secretary says the terms of the Brexit deal will be known before any independence referendum.

She says much is at state for Scotland.

The minister says the next two years are hugely important for Scotland.

She says: "Surely it must be for the people of Scotland to decide their future, it is their choice, let the people decide their future, support the motion."

External Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop says the people of Scotland were told in 2014 that the only way to remain in the EU was to vote against independence.

Ms Hyslop says the UK government has created uncertainty and anxiety. 

The external affairs secretary says the Scottish government was mandated to do all it can do to protect the interests of the people of Scotland.

Ms Hyslop says the Scottish government's position is EU membership and that is what it is pursuing. 

She says people have been asked to make some monumental decisions in a short space of time.

Image source, External Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop

External Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop says it is right Holyrood takes time to debate the sovereignty of our people.

Ms Hyslop says the UK withdrawing from the EU presents Scotland with one of the most critical challenges it has faced. 

The cabinet secretary says  the Scottish government engaged with the UK government, but she says the UK government voted against guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens.

The external affairs secretary says without consultation the prime minister announced the UK would leave the single market and the customs union.

Brian Taylor
BBC Scotland Political Editor

There was much fevered talk of manifesto commitments and mandates during Day One of the referendum debate at Holyrood. (Or, more precisely, Day One of the demand for a Section 30 transfer of powers in order to hold such a referendum.)

However, party leaders seemed mostly keen to talk about promises delivered by their rivals - and the attendant mandates. Or their absence.

For example, Ruth Davidson of the Tories vehemently queried the right of the First Minister to be demanding Indyref2.

In the run up to the first vote in 2014, Ms Davidson recalled that the SNP had talked of a "once in a generation" opportunity. She recalled further that the Nationalists had ruled out a rerun in the absence of discernible public demand.

In response, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said it was the Tories who had created the rethink. She said it weighed heavily with her that she felt obliged to contemplate a further referendum which many didn't relish.

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Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie said it was "absurd to suggest that we should not respond to and react to the fundamentally-changed circumstances we now find ourselves in."

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the Scottish Parliament had been "systematically undermined by the SNP when it does not agree with the SNP", highlighting votes which he said the SNP had lost and then ignored.

The party's leader, Ruth Davidson, said that most people in Scotland are "sick to death of the SNP's games".

She added: "They don't want another referendum any time soon, just three years after the last one. The SNP's plan was not actually about trying to hold a fair, legal and decisive referendum.

"It was about a well-rehearsed game to put forward unworkable proposals, wait for Westminster politicians to point that out, then rush to any nearby microphone - angry face attached - to trot out the same old tired complaints."

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Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale pledged that the party would "campaign with everything we have to remain in the UK".

She told MSPs: "I believe in the United Kingdom not as a symbol of past glories or purest ideology, but as a living, breathing union of nations that delivers for the people of Scotland.

Ms Dugdale also said the UK would be "stronger together, more so than we could ever be apart", and accused the SNP of wanting to "replace Tory austerity with turbo-charged austerity".

Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish government had made a number of compromise proposals aimed at protecting Scotland from the "impact" of Brexit.

And she insisted that "had any one of these proposals been accepted by the UK government, we would not be having this debate today".

The first minister said a manifesto commitment to hold a vote on independence in the event of a "material change in circumstances" from the 2014 referendum gave her an "unquestionable democratic mandate".

And she said that attempting to block a referendum "runs the real risk of undermining the democratic process".

Image source, Getty Images

Ms Sturgeon added: "All of this raises fundamental questions for Scotland. If the UK government can ignore this parliament on one of the most fundamental issues that the country faces, what meaning can ever be attached to the idea that the UK is a partnership of equals?"

On the key question of timing of any vote, she insisted this should be for Holyrood to decide, as it had done in the 2014 independence referendum - when Scotland voted by 55% to 45% to remain in the UK.

But she said the UK government should "set out a clear alternative and the rationale for it" if it did not agree with her timescale.

Mr Sturgeon added: "As I have said in recent days, I am, within reason, happy to have that discussion to see if we can find common ground that I can then propose to this parliament."

Image source, Andrew Cowan

Nicola Sturgeon has insisted that Scotland's future should be decided by the people who live there rather than being "imposed upon us".

The first minister was speaking as she asked Holyrood to back her call for a second independence referendum.

Ms Sturgeon wants a vote to be held in the autumn of next year or the spring of 2019.

But the UK government has already said it would block the move until after the country leaves the EU.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson claimed voters were "sick to death of the SNP's games" over independence as the pro-UK opposition parties argued that there was no appetite for another referendum just two and a half years after the first one.