BORIS Johnson is set to travel to Scotland this week as his Cabinet moves into “panic mode” over rising support for independence.

The Prime Minister’s anticipated visit over the coming days was reported yesterday as part of a new campaign to save the Union.

One Cabinet source told The Sunday Times that Michael Gove and Johnson were working on plans to keep the UK together.

“Michael is in panic mode about the Union and Boris is in irritated mode,” said the unnamed senior minister.

The Prime Minister plans to tell Scottish voters that if they stick with the UK they will continue to benefit from “huge economic support”, the report said.

His visit to Scotland is believed to be part of a planned tour of the UK nations in the coming weeks.

The Sunday Times source said: “He will be popping up all over the UK in the next few weeks.”

Johnson’s coming visit follows a series of polls showing most voters in Scotland support independence, as well as poor approval ratings for his performance handling the coronavirus pandemic compared to high ratings for Nicola Sturgeon. Two recent Panelbase polls found 54% of voters would now vote Yes in a new referendum, which the Prime Minister has repeatedly said he will not grant.

Polling has also revealed that Johnson’s handling of the coronavirus situation has seen his net approval rating on the crisis fall to 99% behind that of the First Minister.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon has the perfect response to Boris Johnson's Scottish tour

Responding to the Prime Minister’s trip, the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader, Kirsten Oswald MP, said: “It speaks volumes of the Tory Government’s sheer disdain for the people of Scotland that Boris Johnson believes a quick pit-stop visit to Scotland will make people forget

the devastating impact decades of Tory policies have had on Scotland – as well as their plans to drag Scotland out of the EU against its will in a matter of months and refusal to devolve key financial powers to protect Scottish jobs and businesses.

“This is nothing more than a tick-box trip that will fool absolutely no one.

“It’s beyond any doubt that Westminster is simply not working for Scotland. Majority support for an independence referendum is now an established position and poll after poll has shown support for Scottish independence in the lead.

“The only way to properly protect Scotland’s interests is by becoming an independent country.”

Kirsty Hughes, an EU expert and former founder of the Scottish Centre on European Relations, tweeted: “Boris Johnson to pop up in Scotland next week ... if that’s a Union-saving strategy it doesn’t look like one. What next?”

The UK’s top pollster Professor Sir John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said on Friday that the independence side were the narrow favourites in a second referendum.

He told the What Scotland Thinks Podcast: “This is the first time in Scottish polling history when one could say ‘if there were an independence referendum today, on the evidence available, the Yes side are narrow favourites’.”

Earlier this month, following the second poll putting support for independence at 54%, Curtice said: “Never before have the foundations of public support for the Union looked so weak.

“Unsurprisingly, for many nationalists, the past three months have exemplified how Scotland could govern itself better as an independent, small country.

“More importantly, it may have persuaded some former Unionists of the merits of that claim, too.”

Last week the Prime Minister claimed the Union has “proved its worth” during the coronavirus pandemic.

He said there was close collaboration between all four nations.

Addressing a question on the Union he said: “It’s the oldest, most successful political partnership in the world and we certainly don’t want to see it broken up.”

Johnson is seen by many as a toxic figure in Scotland and with even some Scottish Tories believing his hardcore support for Brexit will push up support for independence.