THE SNP would hold the power over a minority Labour government in Westminster, Alex Salmond has said.

The former First Minister also insisted on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday that a move towards independence was “as near inevitable as anything can be in politics”.

Salmond, now the SNP candidate for Gordon, said the most likely outcome of May’s General Election would be the SNP working with Labour on a “vote-by-vote” basis. He suggested that the SNP would only enter some sort of confidence-and-supply arrangement if Labour agreed to scrap Trident.

But even if they refused this, Salmond insisted the SNP would play a key role in voting through the Budgets of a minority Labour government. “To deny that is to deny reality,” Salmond said.

The former SNP leader also said that the movement towards independence from Westminster was as “near inevitable as anything can be in politics”.

Salmond said: “The Labour Party have ruled out a coalition but haven’t ruled out a confidence-and-supply arrangement, where you have a set programme – I think it is more likely to be a vote-by-vote arrangement.

“I think people across these islands are pretty fed up with the duopoly at Westminster and might want to see politics a bit more interesting, where parties have to work for their votes and have to justify things on a vote-by-vote basis to the people of the country.

"I think lots of people will find that a much more exciting and productive system of politics. Hopefully that decisive bloc of SNP MPs will move the Labour Party in a different direction.”

Former Scottish Labour leader and current MSP Johann Lamont said that a strong bloc of SNP MPs would result in the “SNP holding a weak Labour Party to ransom”.

“A year after Scotland gave a clear and unequivocal No to the SNP’s separation plans, Alex Salmond would be back at the heart of Westminster trying to sow chaos with our future,” Lamont said.

She also confirmed that while Ed Miliband put an end to talks of a formal coalition, he “still refuses to rule out” a vote-by-vote system.

“That would mean the SNP holding a weak Labour Party to ransom on every vote, every day, all with the aim of trying to weaken the United Kingdom,” Lamont said.

Tory Defence Minister Anna Soubry echoed Lamont’s concerns, branding the prospect of SNP involvement in the government “terrifying”.

Sitting next to Salmond on the sofa, she seemed visibly shaken by the idea of the SNP holding any sort of power at UK level.

She said their “audacity” was “astonishing”, adding that the idea of the SNP having any real voice in the running of the country filled her "with absolute horror”.

“There was a wonderful debate in Scotland, you lost it. We are a United Kingdom, that is what the people of Scotland wanted,” she said.