The Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has described Scottish people as "trailblazers" of personal abuse in politics during a trip to Edinburgh.

Farron said voters in Scotland led the way with the kind of "heated language" that has dominated UK politics since the EU referendum, and the idea that people on the other side of the debate were "morally worse".

The Lib Dem leader also told BuzzFeed News that Nicola Sturgeon was "undermining" the UK's hopes of staying in the EU, and that Ruth Davidson was a weak leader, as well as Scotland's "voice of Brexit".

Farron, who was in Edinburgh to campaign with the local Lib Dem candidate for May's council elections, told journalists that the SNP's "identity politics" introduced new language into political debate.

"You see in Scotland, in particular – perhaps you were trailblazers in a way for the rest of the country – a kind of movement and a direction of heated and personal abuse that you see," said Farron.



"There’s a danger of, and I’ll be careful with what I say here, 'small n' nationalism or any kind of identity politics where people believe those on the other side are somehow morally different or worse from them.

"I sit alongside the SNP MPs in Westminster and I go out of my way to try to build decent relationships with people on all different parties, and I get on on a personal level with them fine – I think that’s how it should be."

A Lib Dem spokesperson later clarified: “Mr Farron was speaking within the context of the SNP in Scotland with particular reference to the independence referendum of 2014 was a trailblazer for the rest of the country to the abuse that we see online today."

Farron was in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh inside the constituency of Davidson, and he said the Scottish Tory leader faces a "big problem" in the wake of the Brexit referendum where 75% of locals voted Remain.