A leading Scottish Labour politician has called for a second independence referendum.

Alison Evison, president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), made the announcement on Saturday via Twitter and claimed democracy had become "fragile".

It comes after the Prime Minister reiterated his opposition to indyref2, despite Nicola Sturgeon saying it is now a "democratic right".

Ms Evison, who is a Labour councillor in Aberdeenshire, said: "It's straight-forward to me: democracy must be at the core of all we do.

"Recently it has become fragile and we must strengthen it again.

"We can strengthen it by enabling the voice of Scotland to be heard through its formal processes & that must mean a referendum on independence."

Reacting to the tweet, Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: "We want to have a debate within the Labour Party, we want to have a big public engagement exercise so we will be taking a wide variety of views from right across the party.

"I don't think it would be right at this time for anyone to say that they had a monopoly of wisdom on the future of the party but it is pretty clear that the Labour Party opposes the creation of a separate Scottish state and therefore the idea of there being a second independence referendum anytime soon is not one that we would support."