Labour should team up with the Green Party to improve its ‘vanishingly small’ odds of election win, says Lucas
Green Party's new leaders call on Labour MPs to help oust the Torys
LABOUR should team up with the Green Party in a bid for control because it has a "vanishingly small" chance of winning an election, the Green's new leaders have said.
Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley made the offer to combine forces as they took joint control of the party.
The party leaders have called on Labour candidates to unite in a "progressive alliance" as part of a bid to oust Tory MPs in 40 or 50 seats.
Ms Lucas told the : "The big prize is electoral reform.
"Labour is beginning to recognise I think that, no matter who their leader is, the chance of them being able to win an outright majority at the next election is vanishingly small.
"They will be doing better under electoral reform, under a proportional system.
"Look at somewhere like Scotland where Labour got almost 25 per cent of the vote that delivered just one MP. That simply isn't fair.
"I think the game changer [will be] as more and more people in Labour recognise that they will be better too under a fair vote system."
Ms Lucas is the Green Party's only MP, despite the party winning more than a million votes at the last election.
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Mr Bartley told the Mirror: "We’re very happy to work with Labour where we’ve got common ground. We aren’t tribal.
"We’re very flattered that the Labour Party has been moving in our direction and taken on a lot of ideas.
"It’s the Green Party that’s discussing what we’d call a grown-up form of politics, recognising that no party has a monopoly on wisdom completely."
Lucas and Barley have taken over as party chiefs from Natalie Bennett.
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