Both sides of the EU referendum debate will take part in rallies in Scotland on Thursday.

Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will make the case for Remain in Edinburgh, and said Scotland has the opportunity to lead the debate over the final weeks of campaigning.

Labour MP and Vote Leave chair Gisela Stuart will be in Glasgow to promote Scotland's "bright future" if the UK chooses to leave the European Union.

Clegg will appear alongside Scottish Lib Dem Willie Rennie and Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale at the pro-EU rally.

The former Lib Dem leader said Scottish votes could make "a crucial difference" to the outcome of the referendum as he urged Remain voters to make their voices heard.

Commenting ahead of the Edinburgh event hosted by the European Movement in Scotland, Clegg said: "This referendum is too important to be reduced to a squabble between a handful of Conservatives who went to school together.

"The outcome will make a huge difference to the lives of millions of people across Scotland and the United Kingdom, and especially to young people who will have to live with the consequences for decades to come."

The Liberal Democrat MP added: "Scotland has a proud internationalist tradition. Just as I believe that the UK should be a leader in the EU, I think Scotland has an opportunity to lead the referendum debate within the UK over the final week of the campaign."

His intervention comes as a new poll showed that while Remain is still ahead in Scotland, support for staying in the EU appears to have dipped north of the border as the ballot draws nearer.

Gisela Stuart MP will take part in a pro-Leave rally in Glasgow on Thursday night alongside Conservative MSP Ross Thomson.

She will make the case that leaving the EU would give Holyrood more powers and criticise the SNP for trying "to scare Scottish voters".

Stuart will say: "Scotland has a bright future outside the European Union. A Scottish Parliament with more powers, a Scottish budget with more funding, all within a UK which has control over our borders.

"If we left the European Union powers over fishing, agriculture and important social and environmental powers would automatically be devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

"The Scotland Act sates that any power that is not listed as reserved automatically becomes the remit of the Scottish Parliament.

"This has already happened with newspaper regulation after the Leveson inquiry which became the responsibility Holyrood, and not Westminster."

Stuart added: "By denying more powers for the Scottish Parliament, the SNP are denigrating the legacy of Donald Dewar, whose genius designed the Scotland Act which guaranteed new powers for the Scottish Parliament automatically, without delay, negotiation or compromise.

"Perhaps the SNP should reflect on why they are asking voters to continue bring governed by an unelected elite in Brussels, rather than their own Scottish Government.

"The SNP should spend less time teaming up with David Cameron to scare Scottish voters, and more time working out what they plan to do with the new powers they will receive when we leave the European Union."

The UK's referendum on EU membership will take place on June 23.