Scotland’s SNP government is to use taxpayer’s money to have the body of former first minister Alex Salmond flown home.
The separatist Alba Party leader, who led the losing Yes campaign in the 2014 independence referendum, died suddenly from a heart attack in North Macedonia at the weekend.
Alba and Mr Salmond’s first, the ex-Tory leader David Davis, urged the Foreign Office to allow the ‘appropriate means’ of repatriating him.
But the UK government resisted calls for the RAF to be involved, because he was a ‘private citizen’ no longer in public office.
However the Scottish Government is reported to have stepped into the breach and will charter a flight to bring him home.
The 69-year-old had made a speech at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy Forum in the city of Ohrid before collapsing at lunch in a crowded room.
The UK Foreign Office has said it is providing consular support to Mr Salmond’s family.
Mr Salmond had led the SNP during the 1990s and then again from 2004 to 2014.
He oversaw a surge in SNP support from a minor party to the one that has governed Scotland since 2007.
He secured the deal with David Cameron on the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 in which 55 per cent of the public voted to remain.
However, Mr Salmond resigned after the plebiscite and was succeeded by Nicola Sturgeon.
The former first minister had a bitter falling out with Ms Sturgeon and quit the SNP in 2018 following allegations of sexual offences against several women.
He would later be cleared in the High Court of all offences and would accuse figures in the Scottish government and SNP of a plot against him, which they denied.