election – PSA Parliaments

By Nasar Meer and Timothy Peace

This blog is based on an article first published in the Scottish Election Analysis Report.

The 2026 Scottish election has produced a more varied minority ethnic cohort than the one that preceded it. It includes new parties, new regions and new biographies. Yet the scale of representation still lags behind Scotland’s population profile and suggests progress without parity.

Scotland is more diverse than at any earlier point in its devolved electoral history. Scotland’s 2022 Census recorded that 12.9% of the population identified with a minority ethnic group, including 7.1% from non-white minority ethnic backgrounds. By contrast, the Parliament elected in 2021 included just six minority ethnic MSPs across the session: Foysol Choudhury, Pam Gosal, Sandesh Gulhane, Anas Sarwar, Kaukab Stewart and Humza Yousaf. That amounted to just under 5% of the chamber.

The 2026 result has increased the number of publicly self-identified Black and minority ethnic MSPs from six to eight. This is a modest shift moving from around 4.7% of the Parliament to around 6.2%. It is therefore a real advance, but still below both the non-white minority ethnic census benchmark of 7.1% and the wider minority ethnic benchmark of 12.9%.

The composition of the cohort has changed more dramatically than the overall number. Of the six minority ethnic MSPs associated with the 2021-2026 Parliament, only Anas Sarwar remains in the 2026 cohort. Humza Yousaf and Foysol Choudhury did not stand; Pam Gosal, Sandesh Gulhane and Kaukab Stewart were not returned. This means the new minority ethnic presence at Holyrood is a substantially reconfigured cohort rather than a continuation of the previous one.

The 2026 cohort includes Michelle Campbell, Zen Ghani and Simita Kumar for the SNP; Anas Sarwar and Irshad Ahmed for Scottish Labour; Iris Duane and Q Manivannan for the Scottish Greens – who is also Holyrood’s first non-binary MSP; and Yi-Pei Chou Turvey for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. This party spread is one of the election’s most significant changes. In the previous Parliament, minority ethnic representation was concentrated in the SNP, Labour and Conservative groups. After 2026, it extends across to the Greens and Liberal Democrats and while the Conservatives and Reform UK have none, both parties fielded a number of ethnic minority candidates.

This wider distribution suggests that ethnic minority representation is becoming less confined to a small number of parties or political pathways. The Greens’ presence is especially striking. Iris Duane, elected for Glasgow, and Q Manivannan, elected for Edinburgh and Lothians East, broaden the cohort in relation to migration, gender identity and political generation. Yi-Pei Chou Turvey’s election for the Liberal Democrats in North East Scotland adds a further regional and party dimension.

The geography has also shifted although Glasgow remains central. Zen Ghani won Glasgow Cathcart and Pollok for the SNP, Anas Sarwar was returned on the Glasgow list for Labour, and Iris Duane was elected on the Glasgow list for the Greens. But Edinburgh and the Lothians now play a much larger role, with Simita Kumar, Irshad Ahmed and Q Manivannan all elected there. The outcome therefore moves beyond an exclusively Glasgow-centred account of ethnic minority representation.

The case of Glasgow Pollok is symbolically important, as the abolition of this constituency, previously represented by Humza Yousaf, and the creation of successor constituencies Glasgow Cathcart and Pollok and Renfrewshire North and Cardonald were won by Zen Ghani and Michelle Campbell. Despite boundary changes and Yousaf’s departure, this part of Glasgow continues to return minority ethnic MSPs. The continuity is geographical rather than personal, but it is politically meaningful.

Conversely, the previous Parliament included minority ethnic MSPs with significant governing experience, most notably Humza Yousaf, who had served as First Minister, and Kaukab Stewart, who held ministerial office. After 2026 both have gone and leave the governing party without a minority ethnic MSP whose parliamentary service makes Cabinet office an obvious next step. The result is a thinner pipeline between descriptive representation and executive power. Importantly, minority ethnic candidates, especially women and visibly Muslim candidates, continue to report disproportionate harassment and intimidation. Humza Yousaf’s rise to the office of First Minister, in which political rhetoric cast minority politicians and communities as less fully Scottish, less legitimate, and more politically suspect, was a reminder that visibility can also intensify racist and Islamophobic abuse. Something openly brought into the Scottish Parliament with a newly elected Reform UK MSP who has called for the deportation of British Muslims and endorsed Tommy Robinson.

There is also a difference in electoral route. Michelle Campbell, Zen Ghani and Simita Kumar entered through constituency victories, while Anas Sarwar, Irshad Ahmed, Iris Duane, Q Manivannan and Yi-Pei Chou Turvey entered through the regional list. This shows that minority ethnic representation is present across both elements of Scotland’s electoral system, although the regional list remains the more common route.

The broader lesson is that representation has widened, but the underlying gap remains. The question after 2026 is therefore less whether Holyrood has made progress. It has. The harder question is how that progress becomes durable, proportionate and ordinary rather than exceptional.

About the authors

Meer is a Professor of Social and Political Science in the School of Social & Political Sciences. He is Principal Investigator of Racial Equality since Devolution: Divergences, Outcomes and Frontiers (Nuffield Foundation, 2026-2028) author of The Social Life of Justice to be published this year.

Peace is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on Comparative European Politics and he edited the book Muslims and Political Participation in Britain (Routledge 2015).

By Stefanie Reher

This blog is based on an article first published in the Scottish Election Analysis Report.

Many of the 1.3 million disabled people in Scotland and their families will be wondering what the next years will bring for the representation of their interests. Two former MSPs who were among the most outspoken advocates of the disabled community in the previous Parliament, including as Conveners of the Cross-Party Group on Disability and contributions to the Assisted Dying Bill debate, Jeremy Balfour and Pam Duncan-Glancy, will not return to Parliament. However, two other disabled MSPs were re-elected: Emma Roddick, who has been an active campaigner for mental health and who shared her experience of not receiving necessary adjustments as Minister for Equalities, and Gillian Mackay, the Scottish Greens co-leader who first entered politics through an Inclusion Scotland internship in Holyrood supporting disabled people’s access to politics.

Advocating for disability rights and interests in Parliament is of course by no means the exclusive domain of disabled representatives. Yet, in practice it is frequently politicians who belong to a particular group who speak out on behalf of that group, often drawing on their own lived experience. Whether members of a marginalised group have a seat at the table can also send a powerful signal about the group’s role in society. Therefore, given the significant inequalities and exclusion that the disability community continues to face, the question of political representation is particularly important for them.

Disabled people are underrepresented amongst politicians globally, but what about the new Scottish Parliament? It is difficult to get accurate data, as many disabilities are invisible and some politicians might be hesitant to disclose them, for instance because they prefer to focus on other political issues or because of the negative stigma that continues to exist in society. Although recent research suggests that public attitudes towards disabled politicians are often rather positive, in reality they face a substantive risk of harassment and (online) abuse. Some disabled politicians have also reported negative reactions from within their parties, with some being questioned about whether they would be “up to the job”. Keeping this caveat in mind, it appears that at least 9 disabled candidates were elected on 7th May, all of them representing the SNP or Scottish Greens (based on figures from Inclusion Scotland and politicians who have publicly identified as disabled). Accounting for 7% of MSPs, this number is far lower than the 24.1% of Scots who report a long-term health condition or disability. Still, it is a significant increase from the estimated 5 disabled MSPs in the last Parliament, and certainly higher than the estimated 2% in the House of Commons. One of the newly elected MSPs is Kayleigh Kinross-O’Neill, who uses a wheelchair and draws on her experience as a local councillor and disability activist.

A key policy aimed to improve disability representation in Scotland is the pioneering Access to Elected Office Fund, which covers the additional costs that disabled candidates face campaigning. According to Inclusion Scotland, who have administered the Fund since 2016, 21 candidates made use of it in this election, up from 14 in 2021. Five of these candidates got elected, a record number. The main expenses the Fund covered to make the election campaign a more level playing field were for personal assistants, travel, coaching, and assistive technology.

Besides the number of disabled MSPs, the parties’ manifestos also give us an indication of what disability policy in Scotland might look like over the next years. A first clue about how much the parties care about representing the disability community is the accessibility of their manifestos. Ideally, all parties would publish their manifestos in audio, Braille, British Sign Language (BSL), Easy Read, and large or clear print. Only the SNP published their manifesto in all these formats, while the Liberal Democrats, Labour, and Greens each provided three of them (none in BSL). The Conservatives and Reform UK supplied no accessible manifestos.

And what have the parties promised to do for disabled people over the next parliamentary term? The diversity of attention to disability across the manifestos is striking. While the Greens have dedicated “Disabled People” and “Mental Health and Neurodivergence” sections, Reform UK’s manifesto does not include any specific pledges to disabled people. Table 1 summarises which issues each party’s manifesto addresses. Similarly to manifesto accessibility, the number of disability-related pledges differs significantly along the ideological spectrum. While the SNP provided the most accessible manifestos, the Greens set out the most comprehensive agenda on how to improve the lives of disabled Scots. The coming months and years will show to what extent these pledges will be fulfilled, and whether the new cohort of disabled, and disability activist, MSPs will be driving this agenda.

Table 1. Issues addressed by parties’ manifesto pledges to disabled people

About the authors

Reher is Professor of Political Science at the University of Strathclyde. Her research examines the participation, experiences, and representation of disabled people in politics, as well as public opinion about diversity in policymaking. She is the author, with Elizabeth Evans, of Disability and Political Representation (Oxford University Press).