In an election which saw the creation of the first coalition government since the Second World War, a process riddled with accusations of backstabbing and betrayal, what could have the potential to be an equally historic milestone has often been overlooked. May 2010 saw Brighton Pavillion elect the Green Party’s first ever MP, party leader Caroline Lucas. En route to addressing the Scottish wing of the party at their last conference before Holyrood elections in May 2011, Lucas stops to talk to The Student about her progress at Westminster and why a sustained alternative voice is more important than ever.

Nowhere can this be more clearly seen than in university funding, the issue which has dominated the agenda of student politicians in recent months. With Liberal Democrats having dropped the commitment from their manifesto in 2009, and going so far as to support an increase in fees this year, the Green Party remain the only political party committed to free higher education for all. Perfect, I say, in an ideal world – but is it affordable?

Lucas claims the party will continue to challenge the idea that there is no alternative, and argues that what other parties lack is political will. She points to research from the UCU which has found that an increase in main rate corporation tax to 32.8 per cent would generate almost £ 3.9 billion. The sum would be enough to abolish all tuition fees, and still leave UK corporation tax below that of France, the US and Japan. This is before even beginning to consider other sources of revenue such as cracking down on tax evasion, the Robin Hood Tax, and cancelling Trident nuclear weapons.

So, will the Scottish elections see any progress towards this ideal world? Under a system where half of MSPs are elected through proportional representation, the Green Party already have two representatives at Holyrood. Lucas says the party are “very upbeat going into these elections” and could be on course to win MSPs in all eight regions, largely thanks to existing achievements over home insulation and climate change policy. Moreover, she claims that in a political context of cuts and stilted mainstream opposition, people are looking for a progressive alternative: “we have got a very distinctive position and message which I think a lot of people will be responsive too.” Her own success in Brighton will likely have a positive impact North of the border, having helped the party to “get through the credibility barrier, sending a message that voting Green does make a difference.”

In which case, how many years does she think it will take Britain to elect a Green government? Laughing, Lucas uses the Labour party as a frame of reference, who went from lone MP to governing party in the space of 24 years. Indeed, she thinks that her party won’t even have to wait that long with the growing urgency of the climate crisis. She points out that many countries in Europe, such as France, Germany, and Finland have had Greens in coalition government, with no evidence to show that their citizens are necessarily more progressive. The two fundamental things hindering Green candidates in Britain, she maintains, are the disadvantaged position of small parties under first-past-the-post, and the fact that no state funding exists for political parties.

She is adamant, too, that critics could not be more wrong to claim that with all parties cottoning on to the need to protest the environment, the Green party has been robbed of it's single distinctive characteristic. “If only that were true! Then we could spend a lot more time with our families  and tending to our gardens. I think the other parties have got clever at Green language. However, one of its first acts was to abolish the Sustainable Development Commission, and the Environment Ministry has just suffered the second largest cuts across government. It's clear that they’re not seriously tackling climate change or wider environmental problems. They’ve adopted the rhetoric, but if you look at policies on everything from more nuclear power to the kind of economic recovery they’re looking at, they have nothing to do with genuine investment in green alternatives and everything to do with business as usual.”

Labelling the party as a single issue one seems increasingly unfair as Lucas lists her personal priorities. Most important, she says, is “that I do the best possible job as a constituency MP in Brighton.” Housing being a key issue in her constituency, she says she will do everything to oppose government proposals to cut housing benefit by 10 per cent for people who have been out of work for more than a year. As for Westminster, Lucas states her intent to “stand up to the issues that the other parties are simply not speaking up about” and act as the alternative voice with the Liberal Democrats now having “their hands tied behind their backs.” It is more important than ever that she is in a position to put up opposition to Trident in addition to placing environmental security high on the agenda. She is quick to point out that when discussing withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, it was only her amendment which actually proposed to withdraw troops as soon as possible.

Her verdict on the coalition government so far is a scathing one, with little sympathy for any sacrifices the Liberal Democrats might have made: “Look at the three things that Nick Clegg said the coalition would be about. He said that new politics would be about fairness, restoring faith in the political process, and the biggest shakeup of democracy since 1832.” She argues that this is hardly consistent with a cuts program seemingly designed to hit women, children and the poorest the hardest, or reversals in policy concerning child benefit and tuition fees. As for electoral reform, she deems the promised referendum on Alternative Voting as merely a very small step in the right direction. As such, “on [Nick Clegg's] own criteria of what should be the new politics, the coalition has perpetually failed.” As for the cuts, the Green Party “completely reject the coalition’s economic theory. We challenge the idea that the best way to tackle the deficit is to cut spending. What we need to be doing is investing in jobs. We need a mass program of renewable energy, which would get people back to work whilst cutting emissions and people’s fuel bills.”
Her message for young people is simply that the decisions being made over the next few years will take effect in an unprecedented way: “Young people’s future is literally in the balance.” She urges students to “look really carefully at what the best political parties are offering, and get involved. Hopefully young people will come to the Green party by recognizing that it’s peoples futures that we are about.” Speaking to Lucas, it is clear that the party has come of age. One wonders if her seemingly optimistic predictions for the party's future could actually be tantalizingly close to the truth.