Vix Lowthion

Vix Lowthion is the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales on the Isle of Wight and the party's national spokesperson on education. She has been a parish councillor for Freshwater since at least 2019.
Biography
Lowthion qualified as a teacher in 1999 and went on to teach geology, geography, history and philosophy. Up to 2016 she taught at Isle of Wight College, but was made redundant due to cuts to funding for A-level teaching, which she publicly opposed. She moved into teaching at a secondary school.
Lowthion joined the Green Party in 2014, following study of geology and energy systems at the Open University, and became the leader of the party on the Isle of Wight in 2015. In her capacity as a parish councillor, Lowthion's campaigning has involved local schools (including seeking a new school in Freshwater). She supported improved renewable energy infrastructure on the island, and Isle of Wight Council's declaration of a climate emergency, while criticising what she saw as patchy and poorly informed support among councillors. She also participated in the October 2019 Extinction Rebellion protests.
Education spokesperson
Lowthion became the Green Party's national education spokesperson in February 2016. As Green Party spokesperson for education, she criticised academisation; pledged to abolish SATs and to increase education funding; and criticised what she characterised as 'arbitrary' government intervention in primary and secondary education. She was also prominent in criticism of David Hoare, the chairman of the UK's school inspection agency Ofsted, when, in 2016, he said that the Isle of Wight was 'a ghetto; there has been inbreeding', arguing that the improvement of the island's schools required investment, 'not name calling'.
Elections
Lowthion was the Green Party parliamentary candidate for the Isle of Wight constituency in the general elections of 2015, 2017 and 2019. She was also third candidate on the Green party list for the South East constituency in the 2019 European Parliament elections but was not elected.
Lowthion's 2015 general election campaign was noted in academic research on the Green Party's success that year for the prominence of its media profile and its sceptical attitude to the party's prevailing approach to winning elections.
In the 2017 general election campaign, Lowthion was vocal in opposing homophobic comments made by the island's then MP, Andrew Turner, who stood down ahead of the general election. Turner's disappearance from politics was seen as creating a rare opportunity for the Green Party to win a parliamentary seat, Nevertheless, this left Lowthion placed third behind Labour and the Conservative Party.
In the 2019 general election campaign, Lowthion was the only female candidate for her constituency, which is the only English constituency never to have returned a female MP. She in the Unite to Remain pact to promote the election of MPs who supported the UK remaining in the European Union, with the Liberal Democrats standing aside on the island; this made the constituency one of only ten in which the Unite to Remain candidate was Green. Lowthion's campaign emphasised sustaining and improving public services, the protection of the countryside, investment in green industry, and reducing the cost of ferry transport to the island.

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