Caroline Lucas has announced she will stand down as co-leader of the Greens in the autumn, saying it is time for others in the party to step forward and widen the pool of its prominent figures.

Lucas, for years the party’s sole nationally recognisable politician as well as its only MP, returned for a second stint as leader in 2016 on a joint ticket with Jonathan Bartley, who leads the opposition group on Lambeth council in south London.

The party requires it leaders to re-stand every two years, and Lucas told the Guardian that while she remained committed to her Brighton Pavilion constituency, she would not be continuing in the co-leader role.



“I think making space for other people at this point is a straightforward thing to do and a good thing to do,” she said. “We have a wonderful array of talent in the party and I would love the opportunity for more of that to be showcased.”

Nominations for the leadership and for a series of other senior party positions will be open during June, and there will be a vote in August.

Bartley has previously said he does not wish to be sole leader, and it is possible he could seek a joint ticket with another candidate. Other contenders could include Siân Berry, a member of the London assembly, and Cleo Lake, a Bristol councillor newly made the city’s lord mayor.

Lucas became the Greens’ first leader in 2008 after the party dropped its previous system of two “principal speakers”, and she increased her prominence further when she became an MP in 2010. She was replaced as leader by Natalie Bennett, who endured a difficult 2015 general election, after which Lucas and Bartley took over.

Lucas said she and Bartley had stabilised the party since then and introduced “a far greater culture of professionalism” during a period in which the party’s vote share was squeezed as Labour moved to the left.

“It’s no secret that we knew Jeremy Corbyn was going to take a lot of the space that we’ve been carving out for ourselves, so these were going to be challenging times and perhaps it was more important than ever to have at least one of our leaders in parliament,” she said.



In an article for the Guardian explaining her decision, Lucas argues she and Bartley are leaving the party in an improved position. “We focused relentlessly on electing Greens across the country. That’s meant more train journeys for me and Jonathan than I care to recall – which might explain why we’re both so passionate about public ownership of the railways,” she writes.

“The effects are already clear – our best local election results ever earlier this month, bringing the Green party to every corner of this country, and seeing us break on to new councils as diverse as Birmingham, Burnley and Richmond. The polls have now seen us overtake Ukip, and we’re closing in on the Lib Dems too.”

When it was announced that she and Bartley would lead jointly, the idea was mocked by many. Lucas said another achievement had been to show this could work: “I think we’ve really demonstrated something very important with this model. I remember a lot of people saying this isn’t going to work. I think we’ve demonstrated that it is not only workable but positively desirable and effective.”

She said this time she would not return. “I make it a point of principle never to rule anything out, but I cannot conceivably imagine at the moment any circumstance in which the party would be asking me to come back for a third time.”