Locking up her bike on a busy Brighton street, cafe manager Bridget Weston might seem a good bet to back the local Green party, but she is sceptical. “I think they have become complacent,” she says. “There’s almost this presumption that because of the way Brighton is, people are just going to vote Green.” A general election is most likely still over a year away, but the starting gun has been fired on one of its most fascinating micro-battles: whether the Greens can hold on to their sole Commons seat in an area where, these days, they arguably represent the political establishment.
Brighton Pavilion, one of three constituencies in the famously freewheeling coastal city, has been held since 2010 by Caroline Lucas, the Greens’ former leader and still by far its most recognised figure, who gradually built her majority from little more than 1,000 to nearly 20,000. Were Lucas standing again the result would be in little doubt. But in June, she called time on a lengthy political career which also included 11 years as an MEP, conceding she had found it gruelling being the sole Green voice in the Commons. The party has sought to hand on the baton as smoothly as possible. Less than six weeks later, the local party selected Siân Berry, another former leader who was strongly backed by Lucas. Berry, a London Assembly member and Camden councillor, has relocated to Brighton and is already knocking on doors. But talking to local Green and Labour activists, and to voters, a picture emerges of a hugely complex race developing, one in which no one will confidently predict, even privately, what might happen.
As they introduce Berry to voters in a constituency where much of Lucas’s support was personal, the Greens are doing so in the aftermath of disastrous local elections last May, where they went from running a minority administration to holding just seven of the 54 council seats. Weston says it was the Greens’ record running the council that turned her away: “If you look around in Brighton there’s always strikes, or problems with the bins. Nothing has really progressed.” A re-energised local Labour party, which holds 38 council seats as well as the other two Brighton constituencies, now has its eye on a series of seats along the Sussex coast, including Pavilion, which was viewed as virtually unwinnable under Lucas. A Labour candidate is not expected to be in place until late autumn, a relaxed timetable that has surprised some local Greens. The jostling has, however, already begun. Eddie Izzard, the actor and comedian, has announced her hope to be selected and has begun a busy charm offensive of meetings with local Labour councillors and campaigners. For all her name recognition it remains unclear whether Izzard – who identifies as a gender-fluid trans woman – would be the best person to take on Berry.
“Berry isn’t local,” one Labour activist said. “She’s still got two jobs in London. When the Tories won the Uxbridge byelection, part of the reason was because they had an ultra-local candidate. You do wonder if that might be a good idea for us here.” Local Labour sources concede that overturning a near-20,000 majority is a tough ask, but argue there is scope for peeling away Green votes, particularly in more deprived parts of a large and socially mixed constituency. For their part, after years of making big local election gains against entrenched local Labour and Conservative parties with few activists and diminished motivation, Brighton’s Greens are now facing their own challenges from long-term incumbency. Some activists say the local party is disillusioned after the council elections, and in some quarters angry with Lucas for not giving any warning of a decision she subsequently said had been made a year before. While the Greens are officially hopeful of taking other seats, notably the revised-boundary Bristol West constituency, Brighton Pavilion remains by far their biggest hope – and losing the seat would be a huge blow. As an MP, Lucas was notably careful to keep her distance from local politics, something that did not always endear her to some activists. This insulated her from controversy over the Green-run council, but makes her mandate even more distinct and personal. The Greens’ tactic has been to present Berry as, in the words of one local activist, “Caroline 2.0”, with Lucas joining her would-be successor on door-knocks, along with a flurry of leaflets announcing the new arrival. Berry says her chats with locals have left the impression that they do want, in effect, more of the same. “They believe Caroline has given them a louder voice as a Green MP, rather than just another Labour one,” she said. “When I asked what I should be doing to win their vote, they said they want another MP like that.” Whether this will work remains to be seen. Pausing as he passed a parade of shops north of the city centre, Jonathan Bastable, a 61-year-old writer, said the current MP would be a tough act to follow. “People liked the idea of Caroline Lucas as an independently minded, free-thinking, locally committed MP, and the fact she’s Green is almost neither here nor there,” he said. “I think they may have trouble hanging on without her.”
But Duncan Walker, a 38-year-old tech worker on parental leave, carrying his four-month-old daughter, Bonnie, said he was likely to remain loyal. “I have voted Labour and I’ve voted Green,” he said. “If it was Caroline Lucas, I would definitely vote Green. And I think I will still vote Green given it’s Siân Berry.” One thing remains certain: no one is taking the result for granted. “We certainly won’t be resting on the laurels of a 20,000 majority,” one Green activist said. “Especially not after the local elections.”