After 14 arduous years it looks as though the Conservative experiment on this country will be coming to an end. Every poll, expert and bookie have a new government absolutely odds on and I for one can’t wait to see the back of this version of the Tory party.

Since 2010 we have been subjected to the politically driven dogma of austerity and it has brought this city – and indeed this country – to its knees financially. Add in the fact we were dragged out of the most successful trading community the planet has ever seen, subjected to the catastrophic financial incompetence of Liz Truss, the snouts in the troughs chomping down PPE windfalls, the continuation of privately owned utilities, dog whistle racist policies, the list is utterly endless.

The chances of this type of reckless behaviour would have been dramatically reduced if we, like every other country in Northern Europe (bar that democratic utopia Belarus) had some form of proportional representation.

Readers of a certain age know exactly how the next couple of decades will pan out and yes, the Conservatives at some point will return to govern again and so the merry-go-round will continue.

This is why it is imperative that there are MPs who will challenge the status quo in the House of Commons and for 14 years Brighton Pavilion has been graced by one of history’s great parliamentarians in the shape of Caroline Lucas MP and with any luck we will quadruple our number of MPs as we challenge in Bristol, Waveney Valley, North Herefordshire. At every election since 2010 Labour have thrown the kitchen sink at unseating the only Green MP in the country and this time is no different. Sian Berry is totally up for this challenge and was out on the doorsteps the very next day after securing the candidacy last year and hasn’t eased off since.

One of the many issues she has taken up is the proposal for Royal Mail to build a new sorting office in Patcham. These plans have horrified local residents and Sian has been unflinching in her support along with local councillors, but – according to recent social media reports – her Labour opponent in the General Election has quite literally run away from the debacle. We are seeing Labour lurch to the right and there’s an authoritarian tone running through the party and nothing shows this more than the news that Lloyd Russel-Moyle has been denied the candidacy in Brighton Kemptown due to what he describes as “a vexatious and politically motivated complaint” dating back eight years.

While all of us in politics should take complaints and allegations about behaviour very seriously the timing of this suspension is an affront to any kind of justice and local democracy.

I have not always seen eye to eye with Lloyd but he has clearly been a diligent and hard-working constituency MP and to be thrown under the under the bus at the 11th hour seems like a stitch up. This will leave the question of who residents of Kemptown will be offered in the place of Lloyd and no doubt there are already a few councillors swiftly penning CVs to get off to the national Labour executive, as I very much doubt that local party members will have any chance of choosing who they want to represent them.

I recently ended a speech in our council chamber with the words “be wary of those who seek only power” and the shenanigans of Lloyd along with Faiza Shaheen and the treatment of Diane Abbott, the first black female to the elected into Parliament, smacks of a purge of anyone on the leftwho may in the future form some semblance of opposition to a party that is clearly drifting away from its origins as one that represents the working person.

Steve Davis is leader of the Greens on Brighton and Hove City Council