Q Manivannan, the Green MSP elected on a student visa that is set to expire halfway through his term in Holyrood, has compared his case to “violently pushing through” barriers for “marginalised people.” When’s that visa set to expire, again?
Speaking on Zoom for the Migrant Democracy Service, he said:
“I’m the first MSP elected without permanent residency or British citizenship and I think I may be the only person in public office in all of the UK and possibly wider who is here on a visa.
And I think and I don’t want to say that just to make it about me because there is a metaphor in Dalit – which is a low-caste identity – which is about what it means to get through a door, and how so often when it comes to folks like migrants or people from marginalised backgrounds of any kind – the door isn’t just one that we are knocking at but one that we must violently push through because it will be one that continues to remain closed to us… I think Scotland ran that door open. Wales did it too. And I think now it’s our time to make sure it’s everywhere.”
A Times investigation has previously revealed that Manivannan “comes from an upper middle-class household in Chennai, one of India’s wealthiest, most cosmopolitan cities. Although the Scottish Greens want to ban private schooling, Manivannan attended both private high school and university, and went on to run a subsidiary of an Indian business that coaches the children of the super-rich to access the world’s elite institutions.” He claims to be a “queer Tamil immigrant,” a voice for the “working class and marginalised,” from a “lower caste” background going “hungry because I was starved”…
The Scottish Greens say: “We are proud to have Q as a Green MSP and to have played our part in building a fairer and more representative electoral system.” There is an ongoing row in Scotland as the SNP legislates to allow Commonwealth citizens with a limited right to remain become councillors. What would Ian Fleming say if he could see what happened to Q…
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”