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!

But not in terms of (at the beginning) your right to be in the country with the intention of want to remain.

And the point of the post was to say, everyone is hyping up this arguement without referencing the obvious that he can now apply for temporary residency. Which cuts out all those double guessing intentions.

Every visa grants temporary residency. I have no idea what you are trying to say. Q has had temporary residency since they first arrived on their first visa.

Ian Blackford getting involved:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/fd5f742f-e4f6-40ce-9b60-7b4fc360246e?shareToken=a02d54ebf2f22158a7a8f16a10d471d0&ver=article

An education is no way a qualification for being a competent politician.

This is the delusion that snob Blair sold the nation that just get a degree and you are employable.

Then what on earth do you mean by no qualifications? I read the biographies of these under-educated Prime Ministers and it seems their usual entry into politics was through student activism and networking with posh friends of the family.

A temporary residency is given to people who for instance are employed by a country based outside of the UK and come to work at one of their UK offices.

ie it is about acknowledging that people who have a work reason to be in the UK are "residents" during the period of their work.

I dont know what you are talking about if you dont know that!

So you are saying Dr Q has qualifications to be a politicians because of student activism?

So how can Q now apply for this special subset of temporary residency for skilled workers sent to the UK by a foreign multi-national company to work at their UK office?

Since the Scottish Parliament isn’t a foreign multinational and Q isn’t an employee hired from abroad to work in a UK office for a few years…why did you say the point is Q can now apply for this?

I’m asking you, what are the qualifications that count in your opinion because you rejected his doctorate as any sort of qualification and other than university education, the qualifications of our PMs when they started their political careers around the same age as Q consisted of student activism and networking amongst posh families.

So Ash Regan is gone and JK Rowling's new MSP is an Indian trans woman?

Excuse me while I have a chuckle to myself.

"Q will essentially be applying for a graduate visa"

Not just "essentially" but that is the only visa that he can currently apply for. As long as his student visa has not already expired then he can take up his position as an MSP

"The graduate visa will be approved"

I agree, it most likely will be.

"...and Q will have 3 years to accumulate the experience and time towards applying for skilled worker visa and then, later, ILR."

Yes, he will be able to remain in the UK for three years with a graduate visa. But what happens after that?

Being an MSP is not a job. An MSP is an "office holder", not an employee. It is specifically excluded from the skilled worker visa:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations-and-codes

So, the skilled worker visa is out (this is why it has been reported that he is not seeking to apply for this). What about the global talent visa?

This visa is strictly limited to people who are leaders, or potential leaders, in specific fields.

Applicants must be endorsed by one of six designated bodies that assess expertise in specific fields. These are:

Arts Council England: architecture, fashion, film, TV etc

Tech Nation: digital technology, software development etc

The Royal Society: natural sciences and medicine

The Royal Academy of Engineering: engineering

The British Academy: humanities and social sciences

UK Research & Innovation (UKRI): academic science and research roles.

.

You will notice that neither the Scottish government nor the Scottish Greens are included in that list. There is no endorsing body for politics or elected office under this route.

OK, so you might suggest that he takes up another part-time job as well as being an MSP so that he might qualify for a global talent visa. The trouble is that the Scottish Greens have a ban on their MSPs having other jobs.

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So, once his graduate visa expires after three years then he is out of the country half way through his term.

What are the Greens going to do after that?

Am I missing something? Being a MSP is paid, therefore a job, therefore subject to right to work legislation?????

He's not a transwoman. He's a bloke who bizarrely thinks he doesn't have a sex. Not fit to represent anyone in parliament.

Non-binary then? My mistake and apologies.

Well if you didn't vote for them that's fine but since they're elected many did. Like it or not that's democracy.

Ok, then Q holds the MSP office for 3yrs and resigns when a skilled worker visa job opportunity arises. The 5yr commitment is not indentured servitude, officials always have the right to resign.

This doesn’t mean Q is out of the country by any means. His PhD is in the higher skilled category despite the sneering.

Let’s not forget there is also a good chance they will meet a British partner and can then apply for a partner visa.

Most visas are only for 30months anyway but immigrants can still be offered and accept permanent employment contracts. So an office for 60mos is like an employment contract with a term of 5 years. It is all above board and currently legal.

I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make about qualifications. No qualifications are required obviously. Or experience come to that. Or apparently since last year, indefinite leave to remain. Whether you agree with any of that is another matter. Those are the facts. And in a democracy people are free to elect who they want as long as those people meet the legal requirements to stand. Which he has.

I think the amendment to not need ILR was ridiculous. I think the whole NB thing is ridiculous. I think he may well end up being a crap MSP. But he is one LEGALLY and DEMOCRATICALLY. Let’s not lose sight of that.

Can we also stop the criticism of his PhD funding as well - arts and humanities, and social sciences are vitally important that we as a country continue to fund. A Gradgrind approach to academic discourse does no society any favours. And I say that as the parent of dcs in STEM careers.

Personally I'd rather have adults in charge. The Greens, both Scottish and English, are moronic. We have

• Mannivan, who, ignoring any trans issues or visa problems, has been in the country 5 minutes and seems to have a problem with "white people"
• Dylan Law, 20, Green Party Deputy Mayor of Hackney, wanting a rent cap of £600 for a 2 bed flat in London. Paid for by whom, I wonder? Oh I know, tax the rich. Got it.
• Kate Nevens (damn, she got in) - let's abolish prisons. Oh, and "gender" is not a threat to women. The threat to women is from the right-wing.
• Iris Duane - referred to the queen as "big lizard Lizzie" and wanted her to "kick the bucket". Both childish and nasty.
• Polanski. Vile anti-semitic misogynist.

And that's in addition to the ones we already had to put up with - Lorna Slater, Patrick Harvie, Alex Staniforth, Maggie Chapman...

@titchy
could not agree more and imho a doctorate in international relations is a more useful qualification to be a national representative than a second class bachelors in classics or geography ffs.

I agree in 3 years his only route will be to try and obtain a PT post-doc research position which will qualify him for the global talent visa (and a shorter route to ILR!) - I didn’t realise Greens had a ban on MSPs having second jobs - that’ll be amusing watch unfold

"Am I missing something?"

Yes, I'm afraid that you are.

An MSP is not an employee of the Scottish Government. There is no contract of employment between the Scottish Government and MSPs.

MSPs are elected office holders. The Scotland Act 1998 refers to this rather than them being employees. For example, section 13:

"The term of office of a member of the Parliament begins on the day on which the member is declared to be returned and ends with the dissolution of the Parliament."

It mentions "term of office" rather than period of employment.

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ps "Ritasueandbobtoo" I grew up in the late 70s / early 80s not far from where that was filmed.

@SummerFeverVenice I think we both broadly agree that given the facts available then Q's visa issues are far from insurmountable and not really worth the attention they are getting on this thread. My disagreement with you is separate to that and based on the fact your are challenging what I know to be a fact.

I misread your previous post and thought you were trying to make the point that asylum seekers have recourse to public funds because they can access them once they have refugee status. I now see that you are still misunderstanding that no recourse to public funds has a particular meaning in UK law and public funds is defined in the immigration rules. You can find the full list of public funds here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-funds--2/public-funds. Asylum support is deliberately not included because it specifically aimed at asylum seekers who are a group of people who have no recourse to public funds.

If you reread the link I sent you earlier then you will see that the opening line says "Migrants in the UK on visas, illegally or seeking asylum are usually ineligible for welfare benefits and social housing. This is referred to as having ‘no recourse to public funds’, or ‘NRPF’. If you google 'do asylum seekers have recourse to public funds' you'll find various other sources to confirm that.

It's a bit of an aside though, because whilst it was reasonable for me to wonder weeks ago whether Q was an asylum seeker when he said he was a former student with NRPF (it's fairly common for people to arrive in the UK on student visas and then lodge a claim for asylum once they are here, especially if they come from a group that is discriminated against in their home country which Q may have experienced both as a Tamil and as a trans person), we now know that he completed his PhD, has the right to work full-time for the remainder of his student visa which has not yet expired and he is actively pursuing a longer term visa.

People usually resign their other posts upon taking salaried public office.

Part of the issue is that the list system means no one actually voted for him as a candidate, he was added to a list by the Greens and people voted Green, not for Q (or Duane, or the lunatic Maggie Chapman).

I’ve got to say, this whole debacle has opened my eyes to a glaring disadvantage of PR as a voting system in the modern age of identity politics, and I’m beginning to view FPTP as a better option.

I agree

it opens the door to the lunatic fringes

What adults would you prefer? The Reform councillors who talk about deporting all Muslims (including British born), or make vile racist alleged comments about "melting Nigerians and using them to fill potholes"? It quickly becomes clear it isn't about illegal immigration at all to many of them and it's just straight up racism and bigotry.

I'm also unsure why Scotland needs councillors from a party fixated on being anti-immigration. I don't think Scotland even has much in the way of diversity? If anything Scotland could actually benefit from a little more diversity. IMHO.