The 2015 general election was supposed to represent the culmination of the #greensurge. Instead, Caroline Lucas finds herself as lonely as ever in the House of Commons.
Even Brighton is no Green fiefdom. Lucas was re-elected with majority of 8,000 in Brighton Pavilion, but this was more an endorsement of her assiduousness as a local MP than her party. The Greens lost nine of their 20 seats on Brighton and Hove Council on polling day. Lucas was re-elected as a quasi-independent: she criticised aspects of the Green party’s minority control of the Council, for example, the hike in the cost of seafront parking to £20 a day, and made scant reference to the party on her leaflets.
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