UK elections

Last night, Green MEP Caroline Lucas became the first Green to be elected to the British Parliament in Westminster. Commenting on this historic win, Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Co-Presidents of the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament said :

"We congratulate Caroline Lucas on her hard-fought well deserved victory in Brighton, which makes her the first Green to be elected to the British Parliament. This is the latest example of a Green success in national elections in Europe. Less than a month ago, the Green Party in Hungary (LMP) entered for the first time the Hungarian Parliament.

Caroline Lucas already made history when she became one of the two first UK Greens to be elected to the European Parliament in 1999. With the victory in Brighton the Greens take their rightful place in Westminster, so long denied by an unjust electoral system.

Today is the beginning of a new era: the presence of the Greens in the British Parliament. We call for a reform of the electoral system, so that in the future all relevant political forces are represented in Westminster.  If the UK applied the principle of proportional representation to national elections, the UK Green European election 2009 result (8.7% of the vote) would translate into approximately 60 MPs. We wish Caroline Lucas, an outstanding politician, good luck and success for her work in the coming years.