AT the last General Election Caroline Lucas became the first Green to be voted in as a Member of Parliament. In the five years since she has made friends with those in power, fallen foul of Parliament rules and even ended up in a police cell. To mark the release of her new book, she spoke to reporter Ben James about life in the Westminster bubble, cups of tea with Miliband, Question Time nightmares and much more

IN MAY 2010 Caroline Patricia Lucas walked from Victoria Station past the statue of Winston Churchill to take her seat in Parliament as the first ever Green MP.

She hoped it would be time for change, to stand up for what she had been fighting for and to put her Green stamp on the historic institution. But what she was met with she could hardly believe. Instead of a functionally, efficient democratic machine, she found a crumbling, dated, cumbersome juggernaut of a political system.

The traditions and quirks were there to be seen from day one. On arrival she was given a ribbon on which to hang her sword before being shown to the members’ snuff box. But more serious issues were to come.

There were frustrations with the voting system followed by battles with the power of the party whips.

It was this “anger” at the system that led her to pen her soon to be released book, Honourable Friends?

“I want this to be another tool in the armoury of seeking parliamentary change.

“It has been just so shocking frankly to see up front how in need Parliament is of reform. I’m talking about things like the extraordinary power of the whips, the lack of scrutiny with legislation and inefficiencies of voting.”

One of the main issues addressed in her book is that of the whips and the power they possess.

Whips are members of a particular party whose sole job is to ensure their MPs turn up and vote a particular way.

If MPs do not follow their instructions, there can be serious consequences. Whips also crucially decide the make-up of scrutiny committees, something Ms Lucas claims is “damaging democracy”.

She also tackles head-on the issue of voting in Parliament, a system which she sees as being “hugely ineffective”.

She said: “Sometimes MPs simply don’t know what they are voting on. When the bell goes for a vote you have eight minutes to get from wherever you are on the Parliamentary estate to the chamber.

“People are just running around trying to get there and you hear them saying ‘what am I voting on?’”

The only silver lining to the system is that she does not need to bother with a gym membership.

“I’m based in the Norman Shaw North building which is out on the furthest reaches of the Parliament estate.

“I literally have to go through the building, down some steps, across a car park, through another building, then down an escalator and then through the courtyard. It is quite a long journey.”

The book documents her attempts to change the system and in particular to change amendments to make them easier to understand.

The response from the whips to her suggestions, she describes as “robust”.

She added: “They were horrified by the idea that MPs might just make up their own minds on things rather than following the party line.”

Another Westminster tradition that may appear quaint is the process of securing a private members’ bill.

These bills are often the only way for backbenchers to raise public awareness of a topic, although they can be quite hard to secure.

She said: “It is a case of queuing up and some have been known to stay up all night in the corridor to make sure they get in.

“I didn’t spend a whole night, but I certainly spent most of it one time. It is a bizarre situation but there is a sense of camaraderie.I even found a Monopoly board.”

The farce in simply getting your voice heard, she argues, is just another result of the inefficiencies of the system.

“The whole thing is a bit of a pantomime. I try to make a distinction in the book about those things that are weird but not that damaging and the other things which are and are unnecessary. I have also been pleasantly surprised by a number of things, not least the ability to work cross party.”

In the 1990s when she was the only Green councillor on Oxfordshire County Council, she came up against great resistance from the established set who voted her down and ignored her motions.

“They basically froze me out but I haven’t had that experience at all in Westminster, I have been pleasantly surprised.

“There genuinely seemed to be quite a lot of excitement about a new political party and people were asking me to be on committees.”

Her time in Westminster has also seen her make friends with some MPs she would never have imagined working with. One unlikely friendship in particular has been with UKIP defector, Douglas Carswell, MP for Clacton.

The former Tory has spoken of his scepticism of climate change and voted against same-sex marriage, yet Ms Lucas found an ally in him when it came to pressing for an alternative voting system.

“I could never have imagined working with him, even before he turned to UKIP. He was quite a right wing Tory and yet we were able to find common cause.

“When we met you could get the sense of people’s eyebrows going up, saying ‘what on earth are they conspiring about?’”

But not all her fellow members are as easy to pin down. When asked if she has a good working relationship with the Prime Minister she responded: “No, not with Cameron”.

She added: “Miliband is easier to get hold of, I have had a couple of cups of tea with him. He is perfectly friendly but the cups of tea tend to materialise when he needs something. But that’s politics.”

Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg on the other hand was one of those who offered guidance when she was deciding whether to stand.

She added: “I knew Nick because we were both in the EU Parliament at the same time and he is really helpful and friendly. Much as I should add I don’t agree with some of his policies in the last five years.”

While the main focus of the book is on Westminster, it touches on other subjects with a chapter dedicated to her arrest at the anti-fracking protest in Balcombe in 2013 and subsequent trial.

“It was quite shocking. A lot of people have said to me after that, ‘well you always expected to be found not guilty’, but we honestly didn’t. I was on the edge right until the end.

“It was not something I did lightly and we didn’t expect to be arrested for it. There was a long time from the arrest to the trial and it perhaps wasn’t until I was acquitted I realised just how much pressure that had been.”

The chapter also provides one of the book’s rare glimpses into the MP’s personal life when she describes the horror of witnessing the police using painful pressure point holds on her son.

“Yes, that was horrible. He was very much there in his own right as a campaigner against fracking.

“So for them to almost come from nowhere and swoop down on him and use those tactics, it was really upsetting.”

In that moment the senior politician switched from an esteemed Member of Parliament to a protective mother.

“I did just sort of cry out ‘hang on, that’s my son’. I wasn’t trying to suggest he should have some special treatment, it was just a really human reaction to seeing someone you love being hurt.”

Being the only MP of a political party has meant Ms Lucas has had to face the media more frequently than her fellow backbenchers. While she accepts it as all part of the job, it can lead to sleepless nights.

“Question Time is always terrifying. You feel physically sick for about a week beforehand and you wake up at 3am imagining the worst possible questions and then spend the next morning scrabbling around to find out an answer.

“Nearly all of us find it really, really stressful.

“Paxman I didn’t find so scary because the difference on Newsnight is you know what you are being asked to come and talk about and that takes away some of the stress. As long as you are up on the issue you are going to talk about you can parry his questions to some extent.”

And the worst interviewer? “Andrew Neil. He has this lovely Bon Ami so when he goes for the jugular it is shocking because he lulls you into a sense of feeling he is on your side. Then he will bring out the knives.”

With five years representing the people of Brighton Pavilion, the country’s only Green MP wants nothing more than a second term.

But if she is to make that walk from London Victoria past the statue of the wartime leader to take her seat again this May, she will need to summon up some of Churchill’s bulldog spirit.

Because in Brighton Pavilion she has a battle on her hands – and on May 7, anything could happen.

In an exclusive extract from Caroline Lucas’s new book, she talks about the historic election night in May 2010

ELECTION night. It is one of the few national rituals familiar to us all.

First the pundits in the studio, the exit polls and computer graphics, marginal seats and swingometers. Then the results themselves: brief scenes of candidates shuffling onto a platform in a draughty hall, their set faces and rosettes somehow placing them apart from the rest of the human race.

Even the more colourful candidates, the Monster Raving Loonies or the Miss Whiplashes, are somehow reduced to an anxious dullness, waiting for the returning officer to step hesitantly up to the microphone, for a few minutes under the eyes of the nation, to read out the results.

‘I, John Barradell, being the acting returning officer for the constituency of Brighton Pavilion...’ I’ve sat up watching elections for as long as I can remember. As a child, with my parents, it was little more than an excuse for a late night.

As a student, it meant more to me, particularly when a woman became prime minister for the first time.

Then came a decade of defeats for Labour, which seemed unable to mount a credible challenge to triumphal Thatcherism. Political issues mattered to me then; but not politics.

‘... the number of votes cast for each candidate was as follows.’ Even after I took the plunge and joined a political party, the Greens, I was still on the outside. We stood to give people an alternative, one they could vote for with a clear conscience, without the compromises and evasions of traditional politics.

The height of our ambitions was to save our deposit or win a seat on a local council.

‘Leo Atreides, Independent, 19 votes.

‘Nigel Carter, UK Independence Party, 948 votes.’ Now, 20 years later, I have stepped through the glass screen.

I am there among them, looking out over the crowds, conscious of the glare of the lights and the TV cameras, as the returning officer continues to read in his dry, formal voice.

‘Caroline Lucas, Green Party, 16, 238.’ A cheer goes up from a section of the audience: my own supporters, who have worked for months and years to convince those 16, 238 people to vote for me.

Only those who have been through a political campaign can possibly imagine the work they have put in, against the odds.

They are delighted, but incredibly anxious: they don’t know if those 16,000 votes are enough to give us victory, or to leave us painfully, horribly, close, as also-rans.

‘Nancy Platts, Labour Party, 14, 986.’ The Labour supporters begin to applaud – in sympathy for their defeated candidate. All their work, just as well intentioned, certainly just as hard, has come to nothing. To the waiting audience, the result is still in doubt.

But not to me. I am learning that politics is full of stage management, and it turns out that the returning officer tells the candidates the result before they all troop on stage for the formal announcement.

So we all stand awkwardly on the stage, not saying anything to each other, keeping a poker face. In my case, this isn't hard. I don't particularly feel like laughing or punching the air. In fact, I feel like being sick.

‘Charlotte Vere, Conservative, twelve thousand...’ His words are drowned out in an enormous cheer from the Greens.

We have won. I wait for a rush of triumphant elation, but it’s nearly six in the morning, at the end of a draining election campaign, and most of all I feel exhausted. Then soon, deep down, comes a slow-burning realization that we have done something amazing. But there's no time now to reflect or gather my thoughts.

‘... I hereby declare that Caroline Lucas is duly elected Member of Parliament for the Brighton Pavilion constituency.’ Another great cheer, and they are beckoning me up to the microphone. A sea of faces, some familiar and friendly, some hostile. Mostly, though, the crowd is curious, perhaps relieved that the long night is soon going to come to an end; but also pleased to be part of a small slice of history.

Because this is the first time that there has ever been a Green Party MP. We’ve had councillors before, and Greens in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies. We've had Greens in the European Parliament – I’ve served two terms there myself – but in British politics, the only one that the professionals take seriously is Westminster.

That’s the breakthrough the party has waited four decades to make. And here, now, tonight, it is me and the people of Brighton.

It’s a bit like a dream: feeling you are in the wrong place, that what is taking place around you, though strangely familiar, is nothing to do with you. For a moment, it’s hard to concentrate.

Even taking the few steps across the stage requires an effort of will. And then the crowd falls silent, with just a few last calls of encouragement, like the audience at Wimbledon settling down to a tense final set.

Thank you. Tonight the people of Brighton Pavilion have made history by electing Britain’s first Green MP to Westminster.

Thank you so much for putting your faith in me and in the Green Party. Thank you so much for putting the politics of hope above the politics of fear. I pledge that I will do my very best to do you proud.

I’ve thought about this speech, of course. You don’t spend such a chunk of your life, and ask others to do the same, without it crossing your mind that you might win.

It would also be awful, in the glare of the lights, to miss anyone out. So I thank the returning officer and his staff, the other candidates and my campaign team and supporters. It’s a ritual, but a heartfelt one: particularly in saluting Pete West, who was the first Green councillor elected in Brighton, back in 1996; and Keith Taylor, the previous Green candidate who got nearly 23 per cent of the vote, the base from which to win this time.

And finally of course, thanks to my amazing family. To my supportive husband Richard, who's been with me every step of the way. My incredibly patient kids, Theo and Isaac. Thank you so very much.

These words make me wonder what I’ve committed them to for the next five years, as well as everything they’ve done up to now. I’ve been an MP for about two minutes, but the reality is sinking in.

And I hope the other candidates will bear with me just while I reflect for a few more moments on what the Green Party has achieved tonight.

Because this isn't just a moment when one MP out of 650 is elected.

It’s where a whole political party takes for the first time its rightful place in our Parliament. This has been the closest election for a generation, in the midst of the worst recession since the war, and after people's faith in politics has been trampled into the mud of the expenses scandal. Not the best time to come to people and ask them to take a risk and put their trust in a new kind of politics.

But we asked the people of Brighton to do that. And tonight we have their answer. One that will give hope to communities up and down this country. And so for once, the word ‘historic’ genuinely fits the bill.

And so I thank everybody from the Green Party and beyond, and particularly the people of Brighton Pavilion, and I’ll do my very best to serve you to the best of my ability.

It’s a relief to get off the stage and share the victory with so many of the friends and colleagues whose tireless work has made it possible. I also feel an immediate and profound sense of responsibility.

It is now my duty to represent the 100,000 people of Brighton Pavilion – a huge privilege, but daunting too. And walking back home in the dawn through the familiar Brighton streets, the sea shimmering, the sun beginning to rise, and with all those supporters and well-wishers around too, I tell myself it will be all right.

The book is out on March 5 available from all good book stores and online including from Amazon.