Caroline Lucas has held Brighton Pavilion for the Green Party, increasing her majority to almost 8,000.
She won the seat with 22,871 votes, a convincing win for the party after she first won with a relatively slim majority of 1,252 five years ago.
She said: “Tonight’s victory is your victory.
“I’d like to thank my family – Richard, you are my rock. Isaac, Theo, thank you so much for all of your support and all of your love.
“We’ve shown we can win elections and serve the people. Thank you for putting your faith in me again.
“This is an incredibly special place. It is creative, compassionate and brave and I’m proud to call it my home.
“Brighton made history in 2010 by electing me as the first Green MP. Tonight we’ve made history again.
“This is the Green’s most successful campaign ever. It’s even clearer tonight that the time for electoral reform is due.
“We’re facing what’s looking like five more years of savage austerity. There are all alternatives and Brighton Pavilion has shown that people will vote for it.”
Speaking after the declaration, she said: “Here in Brighton Pavilion we ran a really positive campaign and I think that’s been reflected in the result here tonight.
“Nearly a million people voted Green across the country. We came a good second in four seats.”
Purna Sen, the Labour candidate came second with 14,904 votes and Clarence Mitchell for the Conservatives polled 12,448 votes in third place.
The other candidates were Nigel Carter, UKIP, with 2,724 votes, Chris Bowers, Liberal Democrat, with 1,525, Nick Yeomans, Independent, with 116, and Howard Pilott, Socialist Party of Great Britain, with 88.
There were 186 spoilt ballot papers. Turnout was 71.67 per cent.
such a shame, she has ruined Brighton!
She has? What did she do? What did anyone do to ruin Brighton in fact?
idiotic comment. I hear so much of this. what’s yr gripe, bins, parking?
Well, it was an election night that suprised all, locally and nationally.
Nationally, we have a divided country. Progressive Wales and Scotland and a negative popular vote in England mostly for inward looking self interest. Brighton Pavillion shines out once more as a special place, a beacon for progress, decency, common sense and tolerance.
What a mess the Labour leadership made by committing so much resource to knock out the Greens. Pavillion was their no.1 target, they have done everything in the book to get Lucas out and have run a 5 year negative campaign. Why on earth did they not concentrate their efforts on getting the Tories out? Why have they let us down once more?
Labour will no doubt take the council, this was on the cards from the day the Greens gained so many seats in 2011, if nothing more than the demographic of a general election, but also because they took over running the council at the most difficult time for local government since the second world war (and constant support from the Argus and city establishment). However, the green vote in the city went up 36% in the GE and in the local elections of 2019 we will be facing declining Labour and Conservative Parties, with few activists to get the vote out and both being encumbered with power and merrily cutting services.
Nancy Platts and Purna Senn are decent people, both far too progressive for Labour. I ask them and all the decent Labour members in the city to now to look at your values and be honest with yourselves. You know the Green Party more represents your views and that it is a democratic party in which your voice can be heard. Cast aside tribalism, lets rip up those Labour Party member cards and join the Greens to build something special in this city. Just imagine the support Nancy and Purna would muster as Green candidates in 2020!
Who cares – just celebrate the wonderful news that the green led council is no more – the nightmare of the past 4 years is finally over!
Oh no – for their cronyistic supporters, the nightmare is only just beginning. Perhaps you’ll need to find a new sponsor?
Green Party holding pavilion what is the town thinking they have ruined brighton wasted monies on projects. I can only assume that the crazies have taken over where are our the locals. God I am glad I have left the area.
I’m in Hove, didn’t vote green…However, the money wasted on projects was nothing to do with Caroline Lucas, it was the council…Common misconception that I wish people would actually realise before making silly little comments about how she screwed Brighton up!
If you have left I wonder why you feel the need to comment?
Also could you tell me what Caroline (or the council) have done to ruin Brighton exactly?
They have completely screwed up the road system caused more stop start traffic in 20mph zones which in turn has trippled air pollution. They have also installed more traffic lights on junctions where a round about would work better which increases journey time and causes more pollution. When are politicians going to realise that trying to force people out of there cars will Never work all the time we have brittish weather and expensive buses, our buses are the most expensive in the country now.
So you’re pretty fixated on cars and how it’s effected you?
You skipped how road traffic accidents have been drastically reduced, noise pollution reduced and all the other benefits. I drive, I’ve lived here all my life and I approve of all their changes especially the 20mph zone.
Our busses are actually pretty great and pretty cheap.
Caroline is a great MP and our council do amazingly considering the filthy Tories have reduced everyone’s budget.
Well done, Caroline.
And, my God, I think that woman who commented before me needs to take a chill pill. And maybe throw a few commas in to break up her angry diatribe!
Congratulations to Caroline – if only that result could’ve been repeated in my constituency, Brighton Kemp Town.
Once we illegally invaded Iraq there was no going back to Labour. We are sleepwalking towards Environmental disaster, yet none of the major parties seem to treat it as a major issue, instead they focus on greed and self-interest.
Why are we so short sighted?
Re election reform…. We already had that vote… Remember…
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011
No actually I don’t remember us getting it – I remember a deliberately rigged poll which nobody understood and wasn’t what anyone asked for yes – but I don’t remember a referendum on vote reform.
I did see 5million people vote and get 2mps today however. 1ukip. 1green. That’s a disgrace and not representative democracy.
She needs to start helping the homeless in Brighton, many of whom are Brighton born and bred. Building some kind of affordable housing for these people rather than accommodation for students. Its ok saying “go and get a deposit from job centre” and then claim housing benefit, but none of the agents in Brighton accept anyone on benefit. Even if you are working full time in Brighton, many salaries are not enough to pay the huge amount of rent asked by most landlords, therefore even these people need to claim top ups from the council. Please start looking after people who have Brighton in their blood and not just those who are only here for a few years
Can you tell us what you mean by this dreadful phrase “Brighton born and bred”? In what way, under what supervision, does this “breeding” take place? It sounds alarmingly like eugenics to me. Does a “bredder” who marries, say, somebody from Surrey dilute the “Brighton” tribe? The phrase is horrifying in its implications.
Christopher – you are showing your pompous, arrogant, superiority again – are you going to join you co-ex-councillor Anya in calling us in-breds?
For your edification, I am also ‘Brighton born and bred’. If you look up the term ‘born and bred’ in your library you might well find the term means ‘Born and educated in a single locale or social class.’. Another definition is ‘if you were born and bred in a place, you were born and grew up in that place and have the typical character of someone who lives there’.
For someone who uses such complex English terms to appear clever, you really are incredibly ignorant at times – have you had a training class from Russell Brand?
BTW – where were your born, and where were you bred?
Well, to absolutely no surprises whatsoever, Green-voting students in Hanover are holding celebratory victory parties right now, and blasting-out music at high volume and screaming their heads off at nearly 10pm. Typical student, anti-social, immature brat Lucas voters
Celebrating at 10pm and on a Friday night! What a shocker!
Very happy that Green voting students are holding a celebratory party. However, moaners should realise that Caroline’s success was not down just to students (their votes being most welcome), but to us hard working residents that want politics to be based on decency.
I wonder if the ‘Green Voting Students’ will still be celebrating this evening, or will it be the supporters of some more mature political parties celebrating the ‘decimation of the greens’ instead?
Hallelujah – another bottle of bubbly please!