A LEADING Yes campaigner has been criticised after admitting she didn’t vote in the EU referendum, despite condemning the Leave campaign for lying.

Cat Boyd, co-founder of the far-left Radical Independence Campaign, was booed and jeered after making the admission on her debut on BBC Question Time on Thursday night.

A candidate for the far left RISE alliance in the recent Holyrood election, Ms Boyd first said she had “abstained”, then said she was “technically out the country”.

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Audience members called her a “hypocrite” and said she had no right to comment on Brexit.

Ms Boyd, 31, one of the Left’s most prominent Yes campaigners, has a history of not voting.

In March she told the Sunday Herald she hadn’t cast a legitimate vote in a general election until 2015, and had previously spoiled her ballot in 2005 and 2010 with “a big score”.

She also said she could not remember voting in the 2003, 2007 or 2011 Scottish elections.

She said: “I think I voted. I can’t actually remember. I don’t remember voting.”

The Question Time row flared up after Ms Boyd attacked the pro-Brexit Leave campaign.

She said: “This referendum was foisted on the general public because of a factional split inside the Tory party. We then had the whole debate whipped into a frenzy by a rabidly right-wing press who made it about immigration.

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“The politicians,who drove round in that Vote Leave bus are liars. They lied. They said £350m. They lied. Now by their own admission they lied. They said £350m a week that went to Europe would go into the NHS, and their lies are now unravelling.”

The programme’s chair, David Dimbleby, then asked her: “How did you vote, by the way?”

Blushing and laughing uncomfortably, Ms Boyd replied: “I, eh, didn’t vote. I abstained.”

There were gasps and heckles of “You’re a hypocrite” and “I thought you were radical.”

Asked Mr Dimbleby why she didn’t vote, she said: “Technically, I wasn’t in the country.”

There was then a round of applause after a man shouted out: “How can you sit up there and talk about it when you didn’t even vote? We’re sitting here listening to your opinion and you didn’t have an opinion. You didn’t give it.”

Ms Boyd replied. “That’s not true. Technically I was out the country at the time the vote took place. But just because I didn’t pick one side, doesn’t mean I don’t have strong views about the other. If someone asked you, Would you rather go for dinner with George Osborne or Boris Johnson, you’d probably have a strong view.”

The man replied: “Rubbish. Absolute rubbish.”

Ms Boyd carried on: “I think there are legitimate criticisms to be made of the European Union, but the fact of the matter is, the way the referendum itself was conducted was disgraceful.

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“We’re told time and time again this is about immigration.”

Asked by Mr Dimbleby about the significance of the Brexit vote, Mr Boyd suggested it was a potential trigger for a second independence referendum.

She said: “I think it’s a really major event. The words that Nicola Sturgeon used - this is a material change, this is a material change in circumstances.”

After the row continued on Twitter, Ms Boyd referred to the 72.2 per cent UK turnout on June 23, tweeting: “I am the 27.7% #bbcqt”