FIRST Minister Alex Salmond wants Tony Blair to be blocked from becoming the first president of the European Union.The SNP leader says the former prime minister should be "disqualified" from the post because of his staunch support for the Iraq war.
He also said he hoped Scotland would become independent as quickly as possible so he could veto Blair's candidacy himself.
The post of EU president is likely to be created as a result of the Lisbon treaty being agreed by the union's member states. Blair, who stood down as prime minister last year, has been touted as a potential candidate by allies and is known to have the support of French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
However, the former Labour leader is not thought to have the backing of German Chancellor Angela Merkel - and the first minister made it clear he will have no support from Edinburgh.
Salmond said: "I'm hoping Scotland will proceed to independence quick enough to have a vote so that we can vote against him. I think Tony Blair would be a deeply controversial figure to be EU president."
He added: "I think he's disqualified his candidacy because of one word, and that word is Iraq."
On the possibility of Blair being stopped, he said: "I have been looking at this question quite closely. It hasn't been done before, so we don't actually know. As far as I can tell, everyone shuts themselves in a room, and a consensus candidate is then meant to emerge. It's a bit like the election of a pope."
He added: "I was told that no-one who wants to be president should allow their candidature to be pre-announced. I thought that was excellent news since the French president had sort of suggested Blair's candidacy. If that disqualifies him then that's excellent."
An aide to Salmond went further, saying: "He hopes Blair is blocked by another member state of the EU."
Blair and Salmond are known to loathe each other after clashing regularly at Prime Minister's Question Time. Blair was thought to have been incensed by the SNP's stance on the "cash for peerages" affair, while Salmond dislikes Blair because of the Iraq war.
A Labour spokesperson said: "This is typical of Alex Salmond's narrow-minded approach."
Meanwhile, Salmond used a briefing with Sunday newspapers last week to outline plans for a US-style overhaul of the way Scotland is governed. The new approach will be based on the Virginia model, focusing on outcomes such as the way that the economy and health service is performing.
"For the next three years you haven't seen anything yet in terms of transforming Scotland," Salmond said.
"We're prepared to measure ourselves against the best, not against the mediocre. It's a whole different relationship in the way that government has been operating in Scotland."
As the nationalists celebrated their first year in power, they also hit their highest ever poll rating.
The TNS/System Three poll shows a 14% lead for the SNP over Labour in Scotland, with a record high of 45%.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article