Caroline Lucas: former Green Party leader to stand down as MP at next election

Caroline Lucas - the former Green Party leader and the party’s only MP in its history - has announced she will leave Parliament at the next general election.

In an open letter, she said she’d “struggled to spend the time” she wanted on the “accelerating crises” of climate change and threats to nature.

Who is Caroline Lucas?

A former press officer for Oxfam, Lucas began her political career as a Green Party councillor in Oxfordshire, and was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 - where she spent 11 years as an MEP for South-East England. She served twice as the party’s leader - initially from 2008 to 2012 - and became the MP for Brighton Pavilion in 2010, a seat she’s represented ever since.

In the summer of 2013, Lucas was arrested during a peaceful protest against fracking in Sussex. She was later charged with obstructing a public highway but was found not guilty.

In more recent years, she became one of Parliament’s most vocal critics of Brexit - and supported legal action against the government when it failed to publish details of contracts for personal protective equipment purchased during the Covid pandemic quickly enough.

Why is she stepping down?

In her letter, the 62-year-old said it had been the “privilege” of her life to serve “the extraordinary constituency and community” in Brighton Pavilion.

But she added the “threats to our precious planet” had become “ever more urgent”, and that her role in the Commons as the Greens’ only MP meant she had “struggled to spend the time I want on these accelerating crises”.

“I have therefore decided not to stand again as your MP at the next election,” she went on. “My determination to trying to make change is stronger than ever. I look forward to having the time to explore ever more imaginative ways of helping to make a liveable future a reality”.

What’s been the reaction?

The Greens’ current co-leaders - Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay - called Lucas a “force of nature”.

Denyer said: “Caroline’s impact on politics in this country cannot be overstated: she has been an extraordinary servant of the people of Brighton Pavilion as well as the Green Party. We are so proud of her achievements”.

Ramsay added: “Very few politicians can claim to have changed the course of the national debate in the way Caroline has. She has brought so much to us as a party, shown real integrity in her work and added a crucial dimension to our democracy in this country”.