Caroline Lucas

Caroline Lucas served as the Green Party's MP for Brighton Pavilion from 2010 to 2024, when she stood down, making her one of the party's most recognisable national figures and the only Green MP for most of her tenure. She served as co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales alongside Jonathan Bartley and later others during the period of the party's growth in the 2010s and early 2020s. In April 2026 she campaigned in Thanet alongside Zack Polanski (the new Green leader) for Green candidate Rob Yates in the Cliftonville KCC by-election, which Yates won with a 26.7-point swing from Reform UK.

LUCAS was the first-ever Green MP elected under FPTP in 2010 and won Brighton Pavilion at every subsequent general election through 2019 and 2024. She was a prominent campaigner on Brexit and climate policy, and an early advocate for a second referendum. Her presence in Thanet alongside the current Green leadership signals how the party is deploying its national profile in key by-election contests that are treated as polling tests in the run-up to the 7 May local elections.

The Cliftonville result, the first live ballot-box confirmation that Labour-Green polling parity translates to seats, brought LUCAS back into the national picture as a campaigner for a party navigating its strongest electoral moment outside Brighton.