Trans Green Party candidate with no British visa elected to Holyrood

A transgender Indian immigrant has become the first person to be elected to Holyrood without a permanent visa to stay in the UK.

Q Manivannan, who identifies as non-binary, was elected as an MSP on the Edinburgh & Lothians East list for the pro-independence Scottish Greens.

It was reported earlier this week that the former PhD student has appealed to colleagues for £2,089 of funding for a temporary graduate visa.

This would give the anthropologist and poet a further three years to work and live in the UK, picking up the taxpayer-funded MSP salary of £77,711.

Manivannan is said to have told colleagues this would help buy time to save up the £5,047 cost of applying for a global talent visa, the UK immigration category for promising individuals in specific sectors.

The self-described “queer Tamil immigrant” was only able to stand in the election after SNP ministers loosened the rules over who could be a Holyrood candidate.

Foreigners could previously only become an MSP if they had indefinite leave to remain in the UK.

Last year, the SNP government introduced legislation that meant they could qualify if they had leave of any type, such as a short-term study visa.

Manivannan was born in the Tamil Nadu region of southern India and has declared a strong connection with the region’s “significant history of resistance, of social justice, of ecological justice, being inextricable from social justice”.

After an undergraduate degree in Delhi, Manivannan moved to Scotland in 2021 to pursue a PhD in international relations at the University of St Andrews.

‘I am everything that the hateful despise’

The student was elected an MSP on Friday under Holyrood’s complicated electoral system, which assigns 56 seats to parties based on a form of proportional representation.

The Greens made Manivannan their third-ranked candidate in the Lothians region and secured three seats there. Overall, a record 16 Green MSPs were elected, including two trans people.

The student told cheering supporters at the Edinburgh count: “My name is Dr Q Manivannan, I am a transgender Tamil immigrant, my pronouns are they/them.

“I am to some in this country everything that the hateful despise, and I am standing here as your MSP now with care.

“They say politics is the art of the possible. A politics of care expands what is possible for everyone left behind, pushed out or never invited in.”

The Migration Watch group tweeted: “Britain is almost unique in allowing Commonwealth nationals not just the right to vote in our elections, but also to stand as candidates.

“Indian migrant Dr Q Manivannan, who arrived in Britain on a student visa, is now a politician in Scotland pushing for the break-up of Britain.”

The Daily Mail reported earlier this week that Manivannan had sent a message to an internal group chat to party members titled “begging for cash” for a visa.

It said the student had raised £1,575, with other Green candidates donating, including Mridul Wadhwa, the former chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, who lives as a trans woman.

UK’s visa system is ‘hostile’

A Scottish Greens spokesman said: “The Scottish Greens are proud of our record election result and to have Q elected to represent Edinburgh and Lothians East.

“The Scottish Parliament rightly and explicitly chose to permit everyone with the right to live here to stand in elections, including new Scots on visas.

“Q is on a valid visa with the right to work and live in Scotland, and is a Commonwealth citizen.

“The UK’s visa system is needlessly expensive and hostile, and we are determined to replace it with one that welcomes people with care rather than throwing up hurdles and barriers.”

Along with its success in Scotland, the Green Party netted hundreds of new council seats in local elections across England. It took its first London borough Hackney, gained control of Norwich and saw two Green mayoral candidates elected in the capital.

However, the party also lost seats in leafier London boroughs and in traditional working-class towns in the North. Critics claimed leader Zack Polanski’s failure to get to grips with anti-Semitism within the party’s ranks was putting some voters off.

Controversial social media posts

The Telegraph has seen posts by Manivannan in which the student bragged about “unfollowing” Auschwitz on social media and supported the vandalism of posters of Israeli hostages taken by Oct 7.

Responding to a post in 2024 by the museum asking for more support on X, Manivannan said: “Just unfollowed you.”

In a separate post made in October 2023, Manivannan defended the defacement of posters showing pictures of Israeli hostages with the word “occupier”, describing the act as an example of “solidarity towards an occupied people”.

The comment was made in response to another social media user criticising the actions as immoral.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Greens said the “unfollowing” tweet was a response to statements by the museum which were viewed as downplaying the suffering in Gaza.  

They added that Manivannan was not endorsing the vandalism being carried out on the posters. 

A spokesperson said: “The Scottish Greens unequivocally condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th. 

“From the start we called for an immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]