HUMZA Yousaf has said he is questioning his family’s future in Scotland in the wake of far-right riots in cities and towns across England and Northern Ireland.
The former first minister appeared on The News Agents podcast on Tuesday to discuss the violence which occurred over the weekend, which saw a hotel housing asylum seekers set on fire as well as various mosques targeted by rioters.
When host Jon Sopel asked how the events of the past week had made him feel, Yousaf said it made him question whether his family could safely remain in the UK amid such a climate. “It’s felt utterly horrendous,” he said.
“It is a strange feeling, Jon, when your very sense of belonging is questioned.
“Look, I am about as Scottish as they come. Born in Scotland, raised in Scotland, educated in Scotland. Just welcomed my third child here in Scotland. Was the leader of the Scottish Government for just over a year. Leader of the Scottish National Party.
“You cut me open, I’m about as Scottish as they come.
“But the truth of the matter is, I don’t know whether the future for me and my wife and my three children is going to be here in Scotland or the United Kingdom or indeed in Europe and the West.
“Because I have for some time really worried about the rise of Islamophobia. I wrote a column about it just about a month ago.
“We are now seeing the culmination of not years actually, decades of anti-migrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric being normalised in our discourse, now playing out in the most horrendous, violent way possible.
"I question if the future for me, my wife and three children is going to be in Scotland." Former First Minister of Scotland @HumzaYousaf is uncertain about raising his family in the UK after the "horrendous" manifestation of anti-migrant discourse.@lewis_goodall | @jonsopel pic.twitter.com/SIC3BMVDIz
— The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) August 6, 2024
“And that genuinely makes me question whether or not my family has an existence here in the UK or not.
“And, by the way, I’m not the only one. I’ve had hundreds of messages from the Muslim community saying the exact same thing.”
After expressing shock that Yousaf would say he felt there may be no place for him in the UK, Sopel asked him where he would go.
“Well, exactly that point," the former first minister said.
“You know, when I was younger I used to laugh at my dad because he’d created these Pakistani identity cards and Pakistani passports.
“And he said ‘You just never know, son. One day we might have to leave this country’.
“We would laugh at him. Genuinely, I feel bad now, we would laugh at my dad and say what a ridiculous suggestion.
“Well, now I’m thinking maybe it wasn’t such a ridiculous suggestion.
“I don’t want to go, just let me make that abundantly clear. Scotland is the country I love and the United Kingdom over the decades, of course [has] a complicated history around race, a lot of countries do, but actually it has a pretty positive story to tell about multiculturalism.”
On Sunday, Yousaf challenged a BBC News presenter after she suggested his description of events as “far-right race riots” risked tarring everyone with concerns about immigration with the same brush.
The former first minister insisted that it clearly wasn’t the BBC’s intention to invite him on to discuss peaceful protest amid the violence directed at Muslims and people of colour by rioters.
