Former Kingston MP Ed Davey has waded into the EU referendum debate by claiming a vote for Brexit will mean a second vote on Scottish independence and the 'destruction' of the UK.

The ex-Energy Secretary, who was knighted in the New Year honours list, posted on Twitter: "Brexiteers know a Leave win means a 2nd Scottish independence vote which SNP will win: so why do they want to destroy our United Kingdom?"

It is a tactic he knows to be effective, having lost his seat in Parliament to Conservative challenger James Berry following a campaign in which the Tories repeatedly hammered home the message that voting for the Liberal Democrats would have seen Ed Miliband's Labour and the Scottish National Party catapulted to power.

When Prime Minister David Cameron visited Tolworth during the campaign last April he said: "If you vote Liberal Democrat you could just as easily end up with Ed Miliband and the SNP running our country as with any other outcome.

"The problem with that is that the projects here in London would be under threat because you’d have the SNP calling the shots in a weak Labour government, and they don’t care about what happens in London.

"They don’t care what happens in Kingston because they don’t want the United Kingdom to be a success."

Surrey Comet:

SNP 'destruction': The tweet

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Read more: Non-eligible citizens in Kingston were registered to vote in EU Brexit referendum

This week it was revealed that people around the country who are not eligible to vote in the referendum had been signed up anyway.

Kingston Council identified six cases, which it said it had resolved and of which four were due to software problems.

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Recent polling showed voters were leaning towards Brexit by a slight margin.