A restaurant has been targeted by TripAdvisor trolls because of family links to independence support.

Rollo Restaurant in Edinburgh is run by Ailsa Rollo, who yesterday instructed the global review site to remove several critical reviews of the establishment thought to have been posted in response to a comment made online by her mother Alison several months ago.

In November, the artist suggested changing demographics could lead to a Yes vote within four years. She wrote: “Just been googling birth and death rates in Scotland. "By my calculations if we have another referendum in four years we could have another 320,000 more Yes voters than No voters.”

The comment was circulated online with the hashtag #SNPout and commenters admitted posting negative reviews of the business as revenge, with one Twitter user named MikeyUK saying: “Oh dear think of the negative TripAdvisor reviews that may be coming her way.”

Another, named Neil McDonald, said five bad reviews had been posted, adding that the restaurant’s response to the criticism was “class”.

One Twitter user named Special Agent 1722 admitted responsibility for some posts, saying: “Oh dear... four terrible reviews have been added to Rollo Restaurant’s TripAdvisor review page.”

He then added: “I did bring politics into my comment... schoolboy error! I’ll stick to bad food and cockroaches under the placemats”.

The reviews branded the establishment “grubby”, “seedy” and “disgusting”, but contained basic factual errors.

One mentioned finding hairs in the soup, a dish which has never been on the menu.

Another commentator wrote: “How terrible to want another human being’s business to fail. Shame on you.”

Yesterday the restaurant declined to comment on the row but Ailsa Rollo confirmed the negative comments had been removed after the business had made representations to TripAdvisor. She also stressed that the restaurant itself was apolitical.

The Raeburn Place establishment, which opened in December 2013, has an overall rating on the website of four and a half out of five, with most of the 237 reviewers listing it as “excellent”.

There are currently only six “poor” and five “terrible” scores.