The Green MP for Brighton Pavilion has called on Labour to support proportional representation to the House of Commons when MPs debate the subject this afternoon (Monday 30 October).
With reference to Labour’s slogan – “For the many, not the few” – she said: “No party can honestly claim to be for the many when they deny the many a meaningful vote.”
Ms Lucas, the Green Party co-leader, urged Labour to “ditch support for Britain’s grossly unfair electoral system” and “embrace the future” by supporting proportional elections to the Commons.
Speaking before the debate in Westminster Hall today, Ms Lucas is urging Labour’s leadership to join the many MPs, members and voters demanding that their party embrace electoral reform.
The debate was scheduled after a petition on the Parliament website gained more than 100,000 signatures.
Labour MPs Stephen Kinnock, Ruth Cadbury, Paul Blomfield and Bambos Charalambous joined the Green Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, the Women’s Equality Party and UKIP in issuing a joint statement on the issue this week.
And Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has previously called on his party to embrace proportional representation, the Greens said.
They added that Jeremy Corbyn said last year that electoral reform “should be considered”.
Ms Lucas said: “The Labour leadership should ditch their support for Britain’s grossly unfair electoral system and embrace the future by backing proportional representation.
“A truly progressive politics is one which hands power to people and the best way to do that right now would be to end the tyranny of an electoral system that locks people out and denies them a real say in who runs this country.
“No party can honestly claim to be for the many when they deny the many a meaningful vote.
“I urge the Labour front bench to swing behind electoral reform and join a movement that would truly transform the politics of this country forever.”
Another desperate attempt to save the Greens from the obscurity they so richly deserve.
You don’t kick away the ladder that you used to attain power. Labour could well take power under the current system. Especially as the Greens manifesto haw been almost totally absorbed into Labour’s.
Why should they want to damage this possibility by supporting PR to save the cluelessly incompetent Greens that we’ve all known to despise?
This is about much more than the Brighton pavilion seat and the greens who I could not care less about. It’s about having a government which represents each and every one of it’s citizens.