A new Scottish Greens MSP faces the risk of not being able to serve a full term because of their immigration status, the party’s co-leader has acknowledged.
Gillian Mackay confirmed that Q Manivannan, who was elected as an MSP for the Edinburgh and Lothian East region, would need to secure a new visa to be able to serve a full term at Holyrood.
She said only that she believed it ‘likely’ that a visa would be granted when questioned about the risk of the new MSP being unable to serve a full term.
The Mail revealed earlier this month that Manivannan had pleaded with colleagues for financial support to raise £2,089 to apply for a graduate route visa, in order to then have the time to save up for the £5,047 cost of applying for a global talent visa.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Ms Mackay said: ‘There will have to be a renewal of Q’s visa.
‘The Parliament specifically passed legislation to allow people like Q to be able to stand and be MSPs, that’s a process that they will have to complete over the session of Parliament.’
Q Manivannan was elected as an MSP for the Edinburgh and Lothian East region
Asked if there was a risk that the Home Office will say no and that the MSP will not be able to see out the session of parliament, she said: ‘I don’t think it’s likely that that will happen but it is a process that will have to be completed over the session of parliament and anything that we can do to support Q through that we will.’
When elected at the Edinburgh count, Manivannan told cheering supporters: ‘My name is 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.’
According to reports in the Telegraph, Mr Manivannan bragged about ‘unfollowing’ Auschwitz on social media and supported the vandalism of posters of Israeli hostages.
The Scottish Greens said the ‘unfollowing’ comment was a response to statements by the museum which were viewed as downplaying the suffering in Gaza.
Discussing the issue on the BBC’s The Sunday Show, Thomas Kerr, deputy leader of Reform UK in Scotland, said: ‘I welcome the two new MSPs who have been elected, I do think there’s questions around the citizenship of one, that’s fine.
‘I think the reason (Manivannan) shouldn’t be in parliament is nothing to do with where he came from, it’s because he bluntly was quite happy to have unfollowed the Auschwitz museum and boasted about the idea of vandalising hostage posters for the October 7 attacks.'
Lord Malcolm Offord, the Scottish leader of Reform UK, later said: ‘It was very reckless of the Scottish Greens to put Dr Q Manivannan’s immigration status at risk like this.
‘I’m sure they’ll now back a bill to stop temporary residents standing for the Scottish Parliament in future, to prevent such careless oversights happening again?’