TORY leadership candidate Michael Gove has made ominous overtures towards Scotland’s block grant and fiscal framework deal in his pitch to succeed David Cameron as the next prime minister.

The Surrey Heath MP, who sabotaged the leadership ambitions of Boris Johnson, launched his campaign yesterday morning with a fairly radical 5,000-word, policy-heavy speech claiming to be the candidate for change.

Gove, who was born in Edinburgh and raised in Aberdeen, said he would be looking to “reboot” the Union and make it “fairly funded, flexible and robust”.

The SNP said this was a clear signal Gove was looking to ditch the Barnett Formula and ignore February’s fiscal framework agreement which resulted from difficult and intense negotiations between John Swinney and George Osborne.

In his speech, the would-be PM said the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU had “led to questions about how we stay together in one United Kingdom”.

This was, he said, “about family”.

“In a family you listen, you treat each other with respect, you make things better. That is what I will do. Treating Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland with respect. Working to make things better,” he added.

“The vote to leave the European Union gives us the chance to renew and reboot the Union. We are taking back control of policy areas like agriculture and fishing that are vital to the economies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Scottish Parliament and devolved assemblies can enjoy new powers in these and other areas.

“I think we need to explore how we can develop a fairly funded, flexible and robust Union for our new circumstances – and I will work across political divides, with respect, to build that new Union.”

Gove pointed out that his parents still live in the Granite City, and insisted he would work well with the SNP, claiming he would be a prime minister “who understands and believes in Scotland – and indeed somebody who has got personal friends in the SNP, who include SNP MPs, people I’ve worked with for 20 years – then I can do that”. He said he thought the possibility of a second referendum on independence unlikely.

Of the five candidates hoping to take the Tory crown, Gove is behind when it comes to the support of fellow MPs. Theresa May has the backing of 83 MPs, Stephen Crabb 19, Andrea Leadsom 16, and Gove 14.

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He is, however, ahead of disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox’s paltry six. May remains the bookies’ favourite. Tory MPs will have their first vote on the contest next Tuesday, when the candidate who receives the least support will be removed from the ballot.

In his speech, which at 30 minutes was significantly longer than that of his rivals, he set out what a Gove premiership would look like. There would be no early general election, and no article 50 triggered before the end of the year. He also proposed an end to freedom of movement and an Australian-style points system allowing migrants to enter based on their skills. He would invest an extra £100 million a week in the NHS. Gove insisted this would, in effect, cover the £350m a week the Leave campaign promised would come back from the EU, as that was a “gross figure”.

There was also a commitment to wide-scale public service reform, to make them “more decent, more human”.

He also attempted to address the fallout from betraying his old friend. Johnson, Gove said, was not building the right team and he was not the right man for the job.

“I never thought I’d ever be in this position. I did not want it, indeed, I did almost everything not be a candidate for the leadership of this party.

“I was so very reluctant because I know my limitations. Whatever charisma is I don’t have it, whatever glamour may be I don’t think anyone could ever associate me with it.

“But – at every step in my political life – I’ve asked myself one question: What is the right thing to do?”

Gove continued, saying that for “all Boris’s formidable talents, he was not the right person for the task.

“I had to stand up for my convictions. I had to stand up for a different course for this country. I had to stand for the leadership of this party.”

SNP MSP Mike Russell, convener of Holyrood’s Finance Committee, attacked the Tory: “People across Scotland – in every single part of our country – voted to remain in the EU and we are determined to make sure that clear democratic expression is recognised.

“It’s absolutely outrageous that a prospective prime minister is now using a Leave vote to imply that Scotland’s budget could be slashed just months after the Tories agreed a new financial settlement for Scotland.”