A 17-YEAR-OLD girl has pleaded with Unionist Twitter trolls to be “kinder” after she was subjected to hours of abuse – just because she’s moved from No to Yes.

The SNP blamed a notorious Unionist Twitter troll for sparking the social media pile-on that saw the teenager threatened, harassed and even branded “dishonest” by a prominent Edinburgh University academic.

But Erin Mwembo has told The National she won’t let the attacks put her off taking part in politics.

Mwembo is featured on the “Changing Minds” section of the website of Progress Scotland, the new organisation set up by ex-SNP MP Angus Robertson.

READ MORE: Progress Scotland: Angus Robertson launches new pro-indy body

In a short video, she says that at the time of the independence referendum she was too young to vote but “having looked at all the issues” she would likely have backed No.

“Since then, however, my views have changed, and like most young people in Scotland I now support independence”.

But the anonymous Brian Spanner Twitter account wrongly claimed to have evidence suggesting Mwembo had been a Yes supporter in 2014.

That led to many other anti-independence accounts targeting the girl, who lives with her mum in West Lothian.

“She’s a liar who is being used by liars,” said the Scotland’s Future Twitter account.

“Did you enjoy campaigning as an SNP activist in 2014?” Jill Stephenson, a historian and emeritus professor at Edinburgh University, tweeted. She later told an SNP local branch that shared the video of Mwembo, that they were “desperate”.

“You people are an utter disgrace,” she added.

“Dear oh dear. Why are you lying? Surely you’re not thinking we all zip up the back?” @RedSkyKite tweeted.

While Broxi78 tweeted: “You’ll go far in the SNP as you’re bullshitter and liar. So that’s all you really need....”

Another Twitter user privately messaged the girl insisting that she had pictures of Mwembo with a Yes sign during the 2014 referendum. The woman told the teeanger not to “poke a potential hornet’s nest” and warned her that she might be a “target” if the “gloves come off”.

Mwembo joined the SNP in 2015, after the party’s successful General Election campaign.

Last night she told The National that the past 24 hours had been “difficult”.

“The abuse that has been hurled towards me in the past 24 hours has been beyond unacceptable,” she said. “But it will not deter me from being involved in politics and campaigning for what I believe in.

“I would just ask that we be kinder to one another and work together, because that’s how we would in person.

“Whether you want undecideds to come to Yes or No, you cannot achieve this by attacking one another on social media.

“To anyone that would listen, I would just ask that before you tweet remember there’s human on the end of your message.”

The SNP MSP Gail Ross said: “I know Erin very well and I am proud to call her a friend.

“She is a bright, ambitious and extremely positive young woman - a true credit to the wider independence movement and for all who engage in politics and public discourse in Scotland.”

An SNP spokesman said: “Anti-independence Twitter users who have directed menacing and mean-spirited tweets and messages at Erin for appearing on the excellent Progress Scotland website should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

“This appears to have been initiated by the Brian Spanner Twitter account - a faceless troll who has a track record of abuse towards female politicians.”

Spanner deleted his initial tweet, saying he had “no interest in a pile on for someone simply asked to participate”.