Michael Gove has said he does not mind if his high-profile role in the Brexit campaign costs him his Cabinet career as he admitted that he feels “personal” antipathy towards the European Union.

The Justice Secretary said he considers making the “principled case for Britain leaving the EU” to be more important than remaining in Cabinet and said his Euroscepticism was born from his father’s fish business failing.

He said this experience had a “significant” impact on his upbringing in Aberdeen and his attitude towards the European Union, recalling that he could not understand as a teenager how those who had inflicted “suffering” on the industry with the Common Fisheries Policy were not held to account.

Speaking on a visit to Scotland to campaign for Vote Leave, he argued that control over fisheries agriculture and even immigration could be transferred to the Scottish Parliament after a Brexit vote.

He also insisted that the contest in Scotland was “entirely open”, despite opinion polls giving the Remain campaign a commanding lead, and rejected claims by David Cameron and Sir John Major that a Leave vote could prompt a second independence referendum.

His comments about immigration prompted a hostile response from Nicola Sturgeon, who said: “Well, there’s fib and a half.” She argued that the UK Government would have to devolve immigration, even if Britain left the EU.