Green leader targets Lib Dem voters
By politics.co.uk staff
Green party leader Caroline Lucas has outlined her plans to target Liberal Democrat voters as activists gather in Birmingham.
The Greens’ first autumn conference since Ms Lucas was elected as their first MP in Brighton Pavilion is tinged with disappointment, however, after failing to overtake Labour as the biggest party on Norwich council following yesterday’s elections.
Ms Lucas told the Today programme she believed the Lib Dems were the party most vulnerable to her arguments.
“Anybody who had one scintilla of thought that the Lib Dems might be a party of fairness have had that illusion completely shattered,” she said.
“What we see now is there is a voice that is needed in politics that is standing up for genuine fairness – that is standing up against Trident, against nuclear power, against all the things that many Liberal Democrat voters thought they were voting when they voted for Nick Clegg.
“They clearly aren’t and what we’re seeing now is more Lib Dems coming to the Greens.”
Green party membership has increased by a third in the last year, Ms Lucas claimed.
Among the most distinctive policy proposals emerging from the conference is her suggestion that politicians should be allowed to job-share an MP’s role.
“This is incredibly sensible. How many times have people talked about career politicians?” she asked.
“If you had job-sharing MPs that would allow MPs to keep a foot in their community. They could do voluntary work, they could continue part-time in their profession. It would enable far more women to get into politics.”
Ms Lucas said her party had always been at the “cutting edge” of new ideas including votes at 16 and the living wage.
