Trans Green Party candidate with no British visa elected to Holyrood

[IwantToRetire]

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.

Full article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/09/trans-green-party-candidate-migrant-elected-holyrood/
And at https://archive.is/LhZYy

Reform couldn't have dreamed for a better headline!

Also no room for being wrong, which is why it's a cult.

Yep

Oh no, you are right for once. Irrelevant, though. As an SNP member/MP for many years, then leader of the SNP in Westminster, he is hardly a right-winger.

For once? I haven't a clue who you are...

Irrelevant point, again...

I think it's relevant.

SNP is a broadchurch party, for those not in Scotland. Hence why we had Kate Forbes as depute leader and Joanna Cherry in WM before she was voted out.

9 years isn't "many". Pete Wishart, eg has been an SNP MP for 25 years, which actually is "many".

So in your opinion, how long does someone have to be a serving SNP MP in order to be considered a genuine party member and not a closet member of Reform?

Reflect on what? A thread about an elected Green MSP with a doctorate has 384 replies and counting because they're trans/non-binary and Indian?

Meanwhile a thread about Reform councillors being suspended left/right/centre
for racism/Nazism/defamation of others has just 21 replies (many of them mine).

Lots of us used to support the Greens and so are surprised and disappointed by how they’ve turned out. Whereas that kind of revelation about Reform isn’t exactly astonishing.

Once again for those who are struggling, it's not because he's "trans/non-binary and Indian", it's because he's not a UK citizen and he only has a temporary right to live in the UK with his student visa, which is about to expire. And I have no idea what you think having a doctorate has to do with it. It's not even clear if he does - some news reports are still describing him as a student, but his academic qualifications are irrelevant. It's not as though there's a shortage of UK citizens with PhDs.

Do you really think it's right that our laws should be made by foreign nationals who don't even have the right to live in the UK? He could be deported when his visa expires, but continue to be an MSP, drawing his salary and making our laws from his home in India.

You don't have to support Reform to think that UK laws should be made by UK citizens living in the UK.

Stop projecting.

👏👏

How have they “turned out” that’s different from how they were before this election?

What I find ridiculous is that someone is able to stand, gets enough votes to be elected on the list, but then asks for money to allow them to take forward their position in the Parliament through a visa application.

The Parliament either has standards or it doesn't, and it's pretty clear it picks and chooses when to apply standards. It's a sham.

Grifter.
Anyone who can use the system to their advantage and does, with no qualms about any negative repercussions on someone else is a grifter.

It's not 'how they were before this election'. They've been pretty batshit for a while now. But when the greens first appeared about 40 years ago, they were an environmentalist party. Many people think they still are, but that changed at some point in the last few years (I'm not sure exactly when) to become a party which jumped on a load of so-called 'progressive' bandwagons, with environmentalism pushed firmly into the background.

Projecting?

I haven’t once mentioned reform or accused anyone of being a supporter.

As long as I have known the SGP, they have been highly supportive of the trans community in particular and diversity in general.

As far back as the 1980s? I remember the environment being the only issue for them back then.

It’s 2026.

Well, yes. Those of us who supported them 40 years ago are disappointed about what they have become in recent years.

This is borderline libel. You are suggesting the individual is lying about having a doctorate and suggesting they are not following the laws regarding citizenship.

As far as I am aware they are here legally and the soon to expire visa can be legally replaced with a relevant one for working.

Meanwhile as I said growing numbers of Reform councillors are being suspended who are openly pro-Nazi and make comments such as "melt down Nigerians and use them to fill potholes" yet the right-wing would rather spend all their time and energy complaining about a non-binary Indian (who needed security to escort them through Holyrood at one point).

"it's not because he's "trans/non-binary and Indian""

Yes of course it is.