“SPITTING mad” voters will back the LibDems in local elections next month out of anger at plans for a second indyref, Willie Rennie said yesterday.

Predicting “big gains” for his party, Rennie, above, said independence is an “enormous” issue on the doorsteps and people think the First Minister “has lost the plot”. He added: “People are spitting mad at Nicola. They cannot believe that just three years after it was settled, she’s bringing it up again. It’s the division in families and communities that they are really angry about.”

Scottish party leader Rennie kickstarted the LibDems’s campaign with a visit to Scottish Grass Machinery in Inverkeithing, Fife, and a pledge to “put mental health services and education at the top of our priority list, alongside ending the unfair council tax”.

He said: “People are wanting us to get back to focusing on these local issues.”

However, Rennie went on: “But we are also sending a very clear message that if you want to put an end to this proposal for a second divisive independence referendum, you can vote Liberal Democrat to send that clear message.”

The LibDems are the second party to publish their local elections manifesto, following the Scottish Greens on Tuesday.

Despite losses at Holyrood last year, which put them into fifth place in the chamber, Rennie said his team had enjoyed some “spectacular results” in council by-elections, adding that more than 30 of these since the last General Election, had given the party cause for optimism.

He said: “We’re making big gains – you can see the fightback coming. The tide is turning; this campaign is another step in that progress, and I am confident that we will make gains.”

An SNP spokesman said: “Willie Rennie fantasises about stopping Brexit through a second UK-wide EU referendum, but thinks people in Scotland should be denied the right to decide their own future – his position is not at all credible.

“The LibDems’s biggest political legacy is voting loyally with the Tories, cutting Scotland’s budget, inflicting the bedroom tax on disabled people and infamously betraying their vow on tuition fees.”