WE are in the countdown to a second independence referendum and there seems little doubt that the pace will quicken after tomorrow's face-to-face meeting between Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May.

The discussion will no doubt be measured and decorous but it will also be confrontational and unyielding. The two leaders' positions have been clearly spelled out, and repeatedly. However the final joint statement is worded, between the lines it will surely read that the two have agreed to disagree.

The meeting is billed as the Joint Ministerial Committee, all of the countries' leaders communing together, suggestive of a collegiate affair, but it is anything but. May will not need to bang the table to ensure that it is her view that will prevail.

The First Minister could not have been clearer about her determination to protect Scotland's place in the EU and her pledge to SNP conference that a 'Hard Brexit' will mean a fresh independence vote. Tomorrow she will formally state the 'red line' issues for the Scottish Government during the process.

Access to the single market, to help Scotland retain free movement of goods and services in the European Union, even if the rest of the UK leaves, would prove decisive, if refused, in triggering a second referendum.

The insistence from Tory cabinet ministers that any Brexit deal must be for the UK as a whole also suggests there will be little agreement.

Another pressure point that Sturgeon's predecessor Alex Salmond has pinpointed is over migration and the right of EU citizen to remain in Scotland after Brexit. Shamefully, May and the UK Government have done nothing to reassure those in genuine fear, treating them almost as human shields in the negotiations.

No less important and again highlighted by Salmond is the issue of retaining employment rights for Scottish workers that emanated from the EU. With these a reserved issue, there will be few Sunday Herald readers who have any confidence in a Tory government acting as the custodians, given their recent record over issue such as restricting the right to strike and extending the time before a case for unfair dismissal can be taken to tribunal.

This newspaper has no faith in what is one of the most right wing governments in living memory, responsible for unprecedented austerity and abominations such as the Bedroom Tax to deliver on a progressive set of Brexit protections demanded by Sturgeon.

The First Minister will go to this meeting in flickering hope rather than expectation