Theresa May has filled her cabinet with "racists" since becoming Prime Minister, according to the Scottish Green's co-convener Patrick Harvie.

The MSP also described a scheme to crack down on illegal immigration into Britain introduced by May when she was home secretary as "racist".

In 2013, the Home Office used a fleet of vans with advertising billboards carrying the message: "In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest."

Harvie used his address at the Scottish Greens' party conference in Perth to criticise the new UK Government.

He told delegates: "I gather that today it [the UK Government] celebrates while the rest of us commiserates, its first 100 days in office.

"A new Prime Minister, who as home secretary was the person behind the notorious racist 'go home' vans.

"And she has filled her Cabinet with other racists, with incompetents - what some of our friends in the US might call 'the deplorables'."

He added: "We have a new UK international trade secretary - the disgraced former minister Liam Fox - who knows so little about international trade the World Trade Organisation feel the need to correct everything he says after he addresses them.

"A Brexit secretary in the UK who doesn't understand how Europe works and whose comments from the despatch box are immediately walked back by Downing Street as 'personal remarks'.

"The UK has a foreign secretary who is loathed by the international press, other world leaders and, to be blunt, plenty of his own colleagues.

"But not to be outdone their home secretary (Amber Rudd) is determined to be the most xenophobic, inward looking, reactionary one amongst them".

Harvie said the "inclusive, civic form of national identity" which is part of the independence movement is the "polar opposite" to the "aggressive and racist form of nationalism" which has led to pro-Leave figures backing calls for dental checks to prove the age of child refugees.

He called on his party to get ready for a second independence referendum following the Scottish Government's publication of a draft Independence Referendum Bill.

He said: "We find ourselves with the results of two referendums which can't fit together. We have a two-year-old 55% mandate, and this year's 62% mandate.

"Even if Better Together and the Leave campaign hadn't lied, the UK which people voted for in 2014 no longer exists.

"We must prepare for the next independence campaign, not just to win a Yes vote, but to win a better Scotland. Greens will continue to strengthen the case on issues such as currency and industrial strategy."

The Scottish Greens backed the Yes campaign in the 2014 referendum but unlike the SNP they supported an independent Scotland adopting a separate currency.

Harvie said the SNP's currency policy is now "even more unconvincing" if an independent Scotland is a member of the European Union while the rest of the UK is not.

The SNP has established a growth commission to re-examine its currency policy as well as other economic and monetarist policies for Scotland.