Politics
Scottish Green Crowdfunds Visa Despite Owning £250,000 Property
— 2 mins read
Q Manivannan won a Holyrood seat under new rules letting foreign nationals on student visas stand for election
A Scottish Green MSP who asked supporters for £2,000 to cover his visa fees owns a property in India worth up to £250,000, according to his own register of interests.
Q Manivannan, born Srivatsan Manivannan in Chennai, was elected as a Green list MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East in May. He is in Scotland on a student visa that expires at the end of 2026. He describes himself as a 'queer Tamil immigrant' and told voters he had 'grown up starving'.
The rule change that put him in Holyrood
Manivannan was only able to stand because of the Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Act 2025. The law, passed unanimously by MSPs in December 2024, lets foreign nationals with any form of leave to remain stand for the Scottish Parliament and local councils. Before the change, candidates needed indefinite leave to remain.
That means a PhD student on a temporary visa can now make laws for Scotland, on an MSP salary of £77,000 a year.
The visa row
Questions about his eligibility began almost immediately, with criticism from the SNP, the Conservatives, and Reform UK. Student visas normally restrict holders to around 20 hours of work a week during term time.
The Home Office confirmed his candidacy was legal and that no visa conditions had been breached, because work in public office is generally permitted. Manivannan has discussed the row himself, and has applied for a graduate visa and a Global Talent visa. He has said he will step down if he cannot secure a new visa. If that happens, his seat passes to the next Green on the regional list. There would be no by-election.
The crowdfunder and the property
Around the election, Manivannan ran a crowdfunding appeal seeking roughly £2,000 for visa costs, raising between £1,100 and £1,575 before the page was taken down. His MSP register of interests later showed he owns a property in India valued at £200,000 to £250,000.
A PhD student on a temporary visa can now make laws for Scotland, on an MSP salary of £77,000 a year.
The Sunday Times reported that he comes from an upper middle-class household in Chennai, one of India's wealthiest cities. He attended private high school and university, then ran a subsidiary of an Indian business coaching the children of the wealthy into elite institutions. His party's policy is to ban private schools in Scotland.
Palestine reparations and public money
One of Manivannan's first moves after election was to endorse the Art Workers for Palestine Scotland manifesto, which calls for a 'programme of reparative justice from Scotland to the Palestinian people'. The Greens' 2026 manifesto backs wider international reparations for colonialism.
His PhD research, on 'caregiving as peacebuilding' in protest movements, has been supported through the Scottish Social Science Graduate School, a publicly funded doctoral training partnership.
Manivannan remains an MSP while his visa applications are decided. If the Home Office refuses them, he loses the seat.
