Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has warned that the European Union referendum will be much more unpredictable than last year’s Scottish independence vote.

The ex-Lib Dem leader said that voters would not be as informed or as passionate about the EU.

At 55-45 per cent the independence result was much closer than many pro-Union politicians had hoped.

But Mr Clegg said: “The vast majority of people just don’t care about Europe as much we do and as much as people did about Scotland and the Scottish referendum.

“Most people put it quite low down on their list of priorities and that it’s a very perilous thing to do therefore to ask people a question on a subject which has a huge bearing on our economic and social future but about which they don’t really care very much."

“People will act in a much more unpredictable way than the highly, highly involved and informed manner in which the Scottish referendum played itself out."

He also claimed that his party would be the electoral “comeback kids” – even as early as next May’s Holyrood elections.

His comments came as delegates rejected a motion to scrap Trident.

The Lib Dems are committed to scaling back the nuclear deterrent on the Clyde.

But the party argues that giving up nuclear weapons has to be done alongside other nations.

The Lib Dems collapsed from almost 60 MPs to just 8 at the General Election.

At the same time the SNP surged from 6 to 56 MPs.

Mr Clegg complained that his party got one million more votes than the nationalists but just one seventh of the MPs.

"Yet (the electoral maths) is the reality we need to deal with," he said.

Earlier party leader Tim Farron sought to dampen expectations that disgruntled Labour MPs would defect, saying he expected them to "stay on and fight" within their own party.

His comments came as he warned his party's annual conference in Bournemouth that the EU referendum could also lead to Scottish independence.

Mr Clegg, who received a standing ovation from the hall as well as tears from some members of the audience, called on voters not to retreat to the "false appeal of nationalism and chauvinism".

On the EU vote he said: "The stakes could not be higher: not just one, but two, unions now hang in the balance.

"If we vote to leave the EU, I have no doubt that the SNP will gleefully grab the opportunity to persuade the people of Scotland to leave the UK as well."

Hours earlier Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie used the stage to hit out at the SNP.

He described the party as "illiberal, centralising, arrogant and increasingly incompetent".

And he accused Nicola Sturgeon's party of using any excuse to talk about anything but their public service failures at home.

The SNP's James Dornan said: "Despite leading the Lib Dems through several election disasters, it's clear Willie Rennie still does not understand why voters in Scotland have so dramatically abandoned his party. His negative, SNP-obsessed conference speech is further proof that the Lib Dems have nothing positive to offer.

"Mr Rennie's colleagues have spent the last five years propping up a cruel Tory government making massive cuts to social security, cutting public services and increasing tuition fees - whilst setting aside billions more for nuclear weapons. Mr Rennie should reflect on this record of failure.

"By contrast, in the face of the huge austerity cuts, the SNP government has improved public services and protected the incomes of the poorest. There are now 1,000 more police on our streets, NHS waiting times are at historically low levels and the Bedroom Tax has been fully mitigated in Scotland.

"We are proud of our record in government and will seek to build on it next year by winning an historic third term. We take nothing for granted and, in contrast to the Lib Dems, we will make the positive case for a fairer, more equal Scotland."