Leftist Eurosceptics have condemned widespread Scottish calls for a second vote on leaving the EU as "sad and worrying".

Scores of the country's highest-profile thinkers - as well as some of Labour's biggest names of recent decades - this week urged a rethink on Brexit as, they said, "its disastrous consequences become clearer every day".

Their landmark intervention, made in a letter to The Herald, has already sparked protests from the pro-Brexit right.

Now left-wing opponents of the EU have added their voices to claims any new referendum would be undemocratic.

The Radical Options for Scotland and Europe or ROSE group slated those behind The Herald letter, including Labour's former First Minister Henry McLeish and Scottish Secretary Helen Liddell, and the SNP's Alyn Smith, as appearing to show a "disregard for the democratic process".

ROSE leaders, including Eurosceptic nationalist Jim Sillars, a former SNP deputy leader, and sitting Corbynista Labour MSPs Elaine Smith and Neil Findlay, claimed such a move was part of a pattern of EU supporters disrespecting referendum results in Ireland, Denmark, France and the Netherlands.

In their own letter published in today's Herald, they said: "If we want an explanation for the rise of right-wing populism across the EU it is in part because of the perception that, at a time of austerity and growing insecurity, there is a privileged elite, doing well out of an EU gravy train, who themselves have no regard for democracy."

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of profiting from youth Remainer voters while failing to take up their cause.

His party's most senior Scottish parliamentarian, David Martin MEP, who signed the landmark letter calling for a halt to Brexit - earlier this month said he believed Labour could be the vehicle for preventing Brexit. However, the Corbyn leadership has instead whipped MPs to support the hard Brexit positions of the UK Government.

Rose in its letter spelled out a potential logic for Mr Corbyn doing so. The EU, it claimed, was a barrier to Corbyn economic reforms.

It said: "The undemocratic assumption that the outcome of the EU referendum can be somehow disregarded needs to be replaced by a commitment to secure the kind of settlement with the EU currently being argued for by Corbyn, one that benefits all people and not just a privileged elite."

Despite many EU member states having continued public ownership of transport and utilities, the Rose letter claimed Mr Corbyn's renationalisation pledges would be scuppered by EU competition rules.

ROSE member Vince Mills added: "Supporters of the EU consistently fail to tell us how it would be possible to nationalise the rail service, take the post office back into full public ownership or begin the process of taking energy out of private hands."

One of the architects of the Brexit halt call is Kirsty Hughes of the Scottish Centre on European Relations or SCER, the country's leading think tank of EU issues. She believes any reverse would depend on a change of heart by Mr Corbyn.

Writing on the SCER website, she said: "It would take a major shift by Labour, committed to Brexit under Corbyn, for it to move back to its traditional pro-EU stance.

"And it would then need either a new general election or enough Tory rebels to force through a vote to suspend the process and hold a second referendum. For now, the UK does not appear to have the political leaders it would need to bring an end to the Brexit process."

She added: "In a democracy, arguments to change course, to change our minds, on something as major and far-reaching as Brexit, can be had."