Brighton has been at the forefront of Green Party electoral success, electing our first MP Caroline Lucas and first Green Party local authority.

However, it provides serious challenges for the party.  

Lucas has made a significant impact on the political system in Britain. From her arrest for opposing fracking to her passionate speech against war in Syria to her private member's Bill to renationalise the railways, she is unafraid to challenge austerity and neoliberal economics.

It is difficult for the Green Party of England and Wales to win seats at Westminster given the first-past-the-post system, so every Green Party member knows that the most significant task they face is to ensure her re-election.

At the same time, the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour Party machines are desperate to remove her.

There are few firm voices in Parliament advocating ecological sanity, peace and opposition to the cuts agenda.  

All on the left, not just those of us in the Green Party, need to support Lucas.

Indeed, with Ed Miliband still committed to Tory cuts it is essential that voices offering an alternative to austerity are present in Parliament.

Opponents of the Green Party find it difficult to challenge Lucas's record, but instead focus on the Green councillors' record in Brighton and Hove.  

There are big challenges involved in bringing in green policies in one city or town.  

It's the worst possible time to be in local government, with life-threatening cuts and restrictions imposed by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles.

In addition, the Greens run a minority administration in Brighton and could be outvoted at any time.  

Criticism of Green councillors in Brighton and Hove can be seen as a way in which opponents may suffocate the Green Party as a resurgent force on the left of British politics.

So how should Brighton and Hove Green Party councillors proceed in this uniquely difficult climate?  

There are no easy answers, of course. But there are indicators.  

One approach is to advocate careful management, even if this means cuts.  

This is logical because as a single minority council administration, building resistance strong enough to fight the Tories and win looks unlikely.  

At least in the Green Party there is a contrast with Labour, in that Labour councillors up and down Britain have been threatened with expulsion and have sometimes been removed if they advocate no-cuts budgets.  

In the 1980s Liverpool and other left-wing councils stoutly resisted Thatcher, but in our decade left-wing Labour councils which might provide solidarity with other no-cuts administrations are a historical memory, like King Arthur or Boudica.

Yet there is a point where we Greens become caretakers for catastrophe, managing as best we can, delivering cuts as compassionately as possible, showing perhaps that we are just as efficient or even better managers than councillors from other parties.  

Yet the shit is increasingly hitting the proverbial and alternatives which are both radical and practical are essential. Better delivery of policies that nevertheless bring misery is ultimately unsustainable.

The situation in Brighton and Hove is reminiscent of the travails of Labour governments in the 20th century.  

When they tried to be good managers, to stop frightening the horses, to perhaps join the Establishment and show they were safe pairs of hands, they - to be blunt - messed up.

When Labour thought outside the prevailing wisdom it made real and effective changes.  

Ramsay MacDonald's policies nearly destroyed the Labour Party and his name is associated with treachery. In contrast, the introduction of the NHS by Clement Atlee's 1945 Labour government provided something we all love.

Many of us would argue that the Greens risk being tamed, becoming another political animal too docile to challenge the power-hungry corporations and militarist political Establishment.  

All Greens should remember that in the 1930s the Labour government swallowed the conventional political medicine and embraced austerity.  

Business as usual for the Brighton and Hove Greens may simply be a recipe for defeat if it appears to local Sussex voters that we are the same as the big three pro-austerity political parties but merely more efficient at delivery.

There are no easy answers for anyone in local government. Resistance has to be built, however difficult this may seem. Imaginative responses to the cuts are needed.  

This weekend I am supporting Green Party proposals at our national conference for a progressive council tax.  

This can be introduced in Brighton and Hove - the principle is simple, and it is legal.  

Council tax would nominally be raised to ensure that the council can protect its services, but about 80 per cent of payers would actually receive rebates that amounted to a cut in their payments.  

The minority at the top of the income scale would pay more so that money can be found to preserve front-line services.

It is not a panacea, it will require a referendum and on its own it is no substitute for Labour, the Greens and the trade unions up and down Britain taking on the government in a unified fight.

Progressive council tax requires detailed examination to iron out implementation problems, for example in shared households, but it is essential that the party does not close down this option and votes to further explore it, and any other means to practically challenge cuts and austerity.  

Derek Wall is international co-ordinator of the Green Party of England and Wales.