CAROLINE Lucas has launched a stinging attack on Theresa May describing her as being unfit to lead the country.

The co-Green leader slammed the Prime Minister’s support for blood sports and what she called the Government’s treatment of the most vulnerable in society.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Argus, she said: “There are so many reasons why Theresa May is unfit to be Prime Minister.

“She has a very backward looking version of Conservatism, it’s the blood sports but also grammar schools and it feels the choice is do you want to go backwards or do you want to go forward to something that is more ambitious and hopeful?

“Her vision of what Britain is like is incredibly small, it’s closed to the rest of the world, we’re scared of people from other countries and we are going to revert back to some misty eyed version of England.”

Ms Lucas also warned Brighton and Hove would never be the same after a hard Brexit, stating it would irrevocably damage the city’s thriving hospitality, tourism and education sectors.

She also predicted public demand for a second referendum over the details of Brexit and the option to stay in the EU would grow over the next 18 months.

Ms Lucas said it was the Tories who would be her closest challengers in Brighton Pavilion and not Labour, who have finished second at the last two elections.

She won the Green’s first Parliamentary seat in 2010 in a close three-way battle and extended her majority six fold to 8,000 in 2015 with the Conservatives within 3,000 votes of Labour each time.

An ICM poll commissioned by the Greens earlier this month predicted she would extend her majority still further to almost 50 per cent of the vote while the Conservatives had moved ahead of Labour.

The former MEP said a crushing defeat nationally for Labour could hasten electoral reform and said the time had come for state-funded political parties to “clean up politics” and reduce the huge imbalance of resources among parties.

She said Labour and Conservatives were spending 100 times what the Greens could on Facebook alone.

Thirteen Conservative MPs had the threat of criminal prosecutions over election spending removed earlier this month while the Greens have faced questions about a proposed £250,000 payment from the Lib Dems over the Richmond by-election.

Ms Lucas said: “The allegations have been absolutely countered and we have been categorical to say not only were there no conditions attached to the donation but the donation was not accepted.

“I absolutely think we need state funding for political parties. I think its shameful the Government is not championing that. In the past we have committed troops to fight for democracy but we don’t seem to be willing to ask people here to pay 50p a year.

Ms Lucas said the snap election had made it harder for smaller parties to campaign effectively and said the Greens would be “realistic” they could not compete with the resources of the bigger parties.

She has focused campaigning on the party’s bid for a second Parliamentary seat in Bristol West and the Isle of Wight but said Brighton remained her “first responsibility”.

Ms Lucas’s Pavilion stronghold is set to be markedly changed for a possible 2022 election with proposals to replace a Green-voting ward with Conservative wards in a new Brighton North constituency – moves she has strongly objected to.

But if successful at the polls on June 8, Ms Lucas has said she has no plans to make the next five years her final term in Parliament. She said: “Politics will change hugely in the next few years but if polls are right and May gets her majority there will be big changes in the Labour Party. The political system will be in review mode about how we can mend this fundamentally broken system.”