Trans MSP could be forced to quit Holyrood if work visa isn’t granted, admits Greens co-leader
The Scottish Green Party’s new MSP is at risk of not serving his full term due to their immigration status, the party’s co-leader has admitted.
Q Manivannan, elected as MSP for Edinburgh and Lothian East, will need to obtain a new visa to serve a full term at Holyrood, Gillian Mackay has confirmed.
He only said he believed it was ‘likely’ that the visa would be granted when asked about the risk that the new MSP would not be able to serve his full term.
The Mail revealed earlier this month that Manivannan had appealed for financial support from colleagues to raise £2,089 to apply for a graduate route visa, in a bid to buy time to save the £5,047 cost of applying for a global talent visa.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Ms Mackay said: ‘Q’s visa will need to be renewed.
‘Parliament specifically passed a law that allows people like Q to stand and become MSPs; This is a process that they must complete during the Parliamentary session.’
Q Manivannan elected as MSP for Edinburgh and Lothian East
Asked if there was a risk that the Home Office would say no and the MSP would not be able to complete the parliamentary session, he said: ‘I don’t think that will happen, but it is a process that needs to be completed in the parliamentary session and we will do everything we can to support Q.’
When Manivannan was elected in the Earldom of Edinburgh, he told cheering supporters: ‘My name is Q Manivannan, I am a transgender Tamil immigrant, my pronouns are they/them.
‘I am everything that some people hate in this country and now I stand here diligently as your MSP.
‘They say politics is the art of the possible. The politics of care expands what is possible for everyone who is left behind, excluded, or never invited.’
According to reports in the Telegraph, Mr Manivannan had boasted on social media about ‘unfollowing’ Auschwitz and supported the vandalism of posters of Israeli hostages.
The Scottish Greens said the ‘no follow-up’ comment was in response to the museum’s comments that it downplayed the suffering in Gaza.
Speaking on the BBC’s The Sunday Show and referring to the MSP as ‘it’, Thomas Kerr, deputy chairman of Reform UK in Scotland, said: ‘The reason he is not in parliament has nothing to do with where he comes from. Because he was clearly happy to stop stalking the Auschwitz museum and boasted about his idea to vandalize hostage posters for the October 7 attacks.
‘The anti-Semitism coming from this person is much worse than where he originally came from.’
Lord Malcolm Offord, leader of Reform UK Scotland, later said: ‘It was deeply reckless for the Scottish Greens to risk Dr Q Manivannan’s immigration status in this way.
‘I’m sure they will now support a bill to prevent temporary residents from standing for parliament in the future, in order to prevent such careless oversight from happening again.’
