Humza Yousaf has revealed he has doubts over whether he and his family will stay in the UK amid a growing rise of Islamophobia and the far right.

The former First Minister of Scotland admits that the riots in England over the last week have been concerning and he is now considering a future where he, his wife and three children move out of the UK and potentially away from Europe. Mr Yousaf has been vocal in his criticism of the trouble in England over the last week and there are concerns it could spread to Scotland.

Scottish Secretary Ian Murray claimed earlier today that there was no specific intelligence that there would be trouble north of the border after speaking to Police Scotland’s Chief Constable Jo Farrell.

Mr Yousaf was speaking to Jon Sopel on the News Agents and shared his concerns that things are going to get even worse in the UK, having warned of a rise in the far right and Islamophobia over recent months.

He said: “It’s felt utterly horrendous. It’s a strange feeling when your very sense of belonging is questioned.

“I am about as Scottish as they come. Born in Scotland, raised in Scotland, educated in Scotland, just brought my third child here in Scotland. Was the leader of the Scottish Government for just over a year. If you cut me open and I’m about as Scottish as you come.

“The truth of the matter is I don’t know if the future for me, my wife and my three children is going to be here in Scotland or the United Kingdom or indeed in Europe or the west. I have for sometime worried about the rise of Islamophobia.

“I wrote a column about it about a month ago, the rise of the far right driven by Islamophobia in Europe, UK and the west and we are seeing a culmination of decades of anti-migrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric being normalised in the political discourse playing out in the most horrendous, violent way possible.

“That makes me question whether or not my family has an existence in the UK or not. I’m not the only one, I’ve had hundreds of messages from the Muslim community saying the exact same thing.”

The former leader of the SNP insists he doesn’t want to leave but he’s starting to feel like he could be pushed out as he shared a story about his father, who had plans in case the family needed to go when he was younger.

He admits he feels sorry about how they used to laugh at his dad for doing it and now they are in a similar situation.

He continued: “When I was younger I used to laugh at my dad because he had also created Pakistani identity cards and Pakistani passports and he’d say ‘you never know son, we might need to leave this country’.

“We would laugh at him. I feel bad about it now but we would laugh at him and say what a ridiculous suggestion and now I’m thinking it wasn’t such a ridiculous suggestion. I don’t want to go. Scotland is the country I love.

“The United Kingdom over the decades has a complicated history around race, a lot of country’s do but it has a positive story to tell around multiculturism.”