Greens hint at electoral pact with Labour

However, any suggestion of a potential formal alliance has been played down by Labour officials

Ms Lucas said there was no chance of anything being formalised while a leadership contest was underway (Getty)

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has suggested her party could form an electoral pact with Labour at the 2020 general election, in a move that would anger many Labour MPs.

The MP for Brighton Pavilion told The Guardian: “My office got a message from his office saying that they were interested in meeting to discuss it. That’s as far as we’ve gone because, of course, we’ve had an election campaign.”

Ms Lucas has recently co-edited a book with Labour MP Lisa Nandy on cross party co-operation.

But the prospect of any formal alliance was denied by Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson, who said said: “I am not aware of any talks relating to an electoral pact with the Green party.”

Ms Lucas said there was no chance of anything being formalised while a leadership contest was underway, but suggestions of electoral agreements between her party and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour have persisted for some time.

“I’m hopeful because more and more people in the Labour party are recognising that, no matter who their leader is, they’re very unlikely to form an outright majority government in the next election, with what’s happening with the constituency boundary changes,” Ms Lucas said.

“Once you’ve got a Labour party in whose interests electoral reform is, then obviously that’s a gamechanger.

“I’m imagining people in Labour are looking at Scotland, where they got about 25 per cent of the vote in the general election and just one seat. That isn’t fair for them.”

The Green Party has consistently backed reform to the country’s First Past the Post system, that led, for example, to Ukip winning just one parliamentary seat for its 4.5 million votes. But a comparatively minor change, the introduction of a new voting system called Alternative Vote Plus, was defeated in a referendum in the last parliament.

“We’re not talking about a blueprint and we’re certainly not talking about something imposed from the centre to the local areas,” Ms Lucas said.