AN SNP politician has claimed he got confused after wrongly telling a Kremlin-backed TV channel a majority of Scots now support independence.

James Dornan told Russian station RT earlier this week that a poll published that morning showed support for separation at 54 per cent.

But no such poll existed, and he later said he had mistakenly believed a survey from more than two years ago was new because it had “popped up” on social media.

He wrote on Twitter that he had “made an error and then put my hands up”.

But Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said Mr Dornan has been “caught telling fibs on Russian state propaganda”.

Mr Dornan, the convener of Holyrood’s education committee, appears regularly on RT despite concerns the channel is a propaganda outlet.

On Tuesday, he told an interviewer on the station: “If ever the need for independence was clear, it’s now. Couldn’t be stronger.

“As a matter of fact there was a poll this morning that showed independence support was up to 52 per cent I think…54 per cent. Against it was 46. So I think we’re in a good place just now.”

It comes after former first minister Alex Salmond was ruled to have breached broadcasting rules on his RT chat show.

Mr Salmond read out tweets and emails he claimed were from members of the public – but which mostly turned out to have been sent by production staff or people linked to him.