Progress without parity: Ethnic and racial minority participation at Holyrood
Published: 7 April 2026
7 April 2026: Professor Nasar Meer and Dr Timothy Peace look ahead to the Scottish elections in May, noting that while Scotland is more diverse than at any point in its electoral history, representation in the Scottish Parliament lags behind.
7 April 2026: Professor Nasar Meer and Dr Timothy Peace look ahead to the Scottish elections in May, noting that while Scotland is more diverse than at any point in its electoral history, representation in the Scottish Parliament lags behind.
Blog by Professor Nasar Meer and Dr Timothy Peace
The 2026 Holyrood election is taking place in a Scotland that is more diverse than at any earlier point in its electoral history. Scotland’s Census 2022 shows that 12.9% of the population, around 700,000 people, now identify as belonging to a minority ethnic group (up from 8.2%in 2011), and of whom 7.1% were from non-white minority ethnic backgrounds (up from 4% in 2011).
Representation at Holyrood, however, lags behind that change.
Since the 2021 election, six MSPs from minority ethnic backgrounds have served in the Scottish Parliament, just under 5%of the chamber. Two of those six, Humza Yousaf and Foysol Choudhury, are not standing in 2026, while Pam Gosal, Sandesh Gulhane, Anas Sarwar and Kaukab Stewart are seeking re-election. The 2021 election did mark an important breakthrough, producing the first MSP of Sikh heritage and the first women of colour elected to Holyrood.
Even so, when measured against the post-2022 census baseline, progress looks partial rather than transformative. Nearly one in eight people in Scotland come from overall minority ethnic backgrounds, but fewer than one in twenty MSPs do. That contrast looks sharper still when set beside the 2024 UK general election, after which the share of ethnic minority MPs was much closer to the share of the wider population.
This matters because political participation is not only about turnout. It is also about whether politics feels accessible, responsive and safe, and whether standing for office is realistically attainable rather than symbolically encouraged. So, while Scotland’s minority ethnic electorate is internally diverse, there are still common structural asymmetries, including uneven outreach, limited tailored information and scepticism rooted in persistent under-representation.
As our earlier work on minority electoral participation in Scotland has highlighted, trust in institutions, engagement outside election periods, and whether communities feel listened to rather than only noticed during campaigns, matters profoundly. So too does opportunity, which has also been structured unevenly by party strategy and electoral geography. Minority ethnic candidates have often been concentrated in and around Glasgow, where population density, party selection practices and assumptions about winnability have aligned. Yet the 2026 candidate lists suggest some broadening, with minority ethnic candidacies now more visible in places such as Edinburgh, Aberdeen and parts of the central belt. That is a potentially important shift, but it does not remove the importance of local demography and boundary change.
Glasgow Pollok is an example. Represented by Humza Yousaf since 2016, it has long been regarded as an electorally safe seat in a city where 17.3% of residents identify as belonging to an ethnic minority group. For 2026, however, Pollok is being abolished and redistributed under the Second Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries, with communities moved into new seats including Glasgow Cathcart and Pollok and Glasgow Central. In Glasgow Cathcart and Pollok, three of the six currently listed candidates are from minority ethnic backgrounds, while representation in Glasgow Central appears thinner. Boundary change is not just technical. It reshapes where minority communities sit electorally, where parties invest, and how winnability is recalculated in selection and list placement.
The campaign environment is no less important. Minority ethnic candidates, especially women and visibly Muslim candidates, continue to report disproportionate harassment and intimidation. Scotland is not exempt from wider trends in online abuse. The backlash surrounding Humza Yousaf’s rise to the office of First Minister, in which political rhetoric that racialised belonging and cast minority politicians and communities as less fully Scottish, less legitimate, and more politically suspect, is a reminder that greater visibility can also intensify racist and Islamophobic abuse. This hostility is not confined to isolated abuse or anonymous commentary, but is notably articulated by politicians themselves, including newly announced Reform UK candidates who have previously advocated ‘deporting Muslims’. The result is not only a deterrent to new entrants. It can also contribute to earlier exit from political life, narrowing a limited pool of experienced minority ethnic representatives.
Media coverage has not always helped. Minority ethnic political participation in Scotland is often framed through moments of exception, symbolic firsts or controversy, rather than as a normal feature of democratic life. While celebratory narratives matter, they can obscure structural questions about party selection, institutional design and the distribution of political labour. A small number of minority ethnic MSPs can become highly visible without participation becoming substantially broader.
There have been some recent institutional responses. The Scottish Government has acknowledged weaknesses in the data on political representation and initiated work to improve measurement, including voluntary candidate diversity surveys at recent elections. These steps matter, and the wider spread of minority ethnic candidacies in 2026 may indicate some movement. But without more robust data on candidates, representatives and voter experience, it remains difficult to judge whether participation is genuinely broadening or merely becoming more visible.
As the 2026 Holyrood election approaches, the question is no longer whether Scotland is becoming more diverse. It is whether Scottish democracy is adapting quickly enough to reflect that diversity in who stands, who is elected and who feels politics is for them. In that sense, ethnic and racial minority participation at Holyrood remains a test of whether Scotland’s democratic self-image can be matched by its institutions.
Authors
Nasar Meer FBA is 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.
Dr Timothy 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.
Centre for Public Policy on Elections 2026
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Image by Liz Leyden from Getty Images Signature via Canva Pro
First published: 7 April 2026