The modern Scottish Green Party prides itself on presenting a progressive, borderless vision of politics, campaigning on the promise that anyone who calls Scotland home should have a hand in shaping its laws. Yet, behind the scenes of their historic 15-seat Holyrood election breakthrough, a fracturing internal controversy has exposed a gaping divide between the party’s public rhetoric and its private risk management.
Sai Shraddha Suresh Viswanathan, the high-profile president of the National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland and an international student from India, has revealed that senior party officials pressured her to withdraw from the North East of Scotland regional list due to her student visa status. Viswanathan had secured the third spot on the party’s internal selection list, positioning her as a viable contender. Her forced departure contrasts sharply with the trajectory of fellow Indian-origin candidate Q Manivannan, who ran on a similar student visa in the Edinburgh and Lothians East region, won, and now faces immediate calls for a Home Office investigation just days into the job.
The discrepancy points to an uncomfortable reality. Scotland’s expanded franchise, meant to democratize the legislative branch, has collided directly with rigid UK immigration laws, leaving migrant candidates caught in the crossfire of institutional inconsistency.
The Two-Tier Advice System
The primary friction point lies in how the Scottish Greens managed two candidates facing identical legal hurdles. Viswanathan claims that in July 2025, she received a phone call from a party official who cited legal advice suggesting she might be disqualified mid-term if her immigration status shifted. Fearing a high-profile legal challenge for the party and under immense pressure, she stepped back, an experience she notes took a severe toll on her health and well-being.
Concurrently, Manivannan’s campaign proceeded with full party backing. The disparity has forced the party into a defensive stance. Officially, the Scottish Greens state they have blocked nobody, shifting the onus entirely onto the individuals by asserting that candidates are solely responsible for ensuring they meet legal and eligibility requirements.
This hands-off organizational strategy looks less like principled neutrality and more like localized panic. In one region, a prominent student leader was steered away to protect the party from a potential legal headache; in another, a candidate was permitted to run, leaving the party to deal with the inevitable political fallout after the ballots were cast.
The Holyrood Loophole Meets Westminster Reality
The root of this crisis is a profound legislative mismatch. In 2024, the Scottish Parliament passed historic eligibility reforms. The new rules permitted individuals without permanent residency rights, including foreign nationals holding temporary visas, to stand for election to Holyrood.
The reform was celebrated as a milestone for migrant representation. However, the legislation contained a critical, unaddressed flaw. While it legalized the act of running for office and winning a seat, it possessed zero power to alter the UK Home Office’s strict visa conditions.
The operational realities of a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) clash violently with standard student visa regulations:
- The 20-Hour Work Limit: Under standard UK student visa terms, holders are strictly capped at 20 hours of work per week during term time.
- The Full-Time Mandate: An MSP is legally and practically a full-time position. It requires long hours in chamber debates, committee meetings, and intensive constituency casework.
- The Mid-Term Disqualification Risk: If an MSP loses their legal right to remain in the UK at any point during the five-year parliamentary term, they are automatically disqualified, triggering a chaotic regional list recalculation or a highly disruptive by-election.
Manivannan has defended their position by stating that having passed their grant-funded PhD and viva, they are now legally permitted to work full-time. They are currently attempting a complex bureaucratic maneuver, moving from a student visa to a three-year graduate visa while simultaneously applying for a Global Talent visa to cover the remainder of their five-year term.
The Scottish Conservatives have already seized on the vulnerability. Shadow ministers have written directly to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, demanding an immediate investigation into whether Manivannan breached the 20-hour work limit during the grueling campaign trail.
The Institutional Failure of Vetting
Political parties exist, in part, to vet candidates and insulate themselves from predictable legal vulnerabilities. By leaving the interpretation of immigration law entirely up to individual candidates, the Scottish Greens created an environment ripe for unequal treatment.
Viswanathan’s exit and Manivannan’s subsequent victory demonstrate that the party lacked a coherent, standardized protocol for the 2024 franchise expansion. Rather than establishing a clear, legally secure framework to support and protect non-UK citizen candidates, the party relied on ad-hoc decisions made over informal phone calls.
This lack of institutional safety nets hurts the very people the policy was intended to empower. Migrant candidates are left to navigate the hostile, hyper-politicized terrain of UK immigration enforcement completely isolated. If they succeed, they face immediate hostile scrutiny from opposition parties and national tabloids. If they are quietly discouraged from running, their voices are silenced before the public ever gets a chance to vote.
The Scottish Greens have achieved their largest-ever parliamentary presence, but the celebration is permanently shadowed by this systemic oversight. Scotland’s bold experiment in inclusive democracy has revealed a stark lesson. Passing progressive election laws is meaningless if the institutions implementing them lack the courage or the competence to defend the candidates who step forward to test them.
