The Green Party have outscored the Liberal Democrats in a national opinion poll – a finding that intensified pressure for it to be represented in a general election TV leaders’ debate.
YouGov research for The Sun newspaper put Labour three ahead of the Conservatives by 34% to 31%, and the Greens on 7% and the Lib Dems on 6%.
In between were Ukip on 17% as the eurosceptic party maintained the surge in popularity that saw it come top in May’s European elections and leave it on course to take a second Commons seat from the Tories next month.
The BBC has cited such a “substantial increase in electoral support” as justification for including Ukip leader Nigel Farage in one of the live debates proposed by broadcasters.
Mr Farage is slated to appear alongside David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband in a four-way confrontation – with the three established Westminster party leaders in another and just the Prime Minister and Opposition leader in a third.
Explaining the exclusion of the Greens in a letter – after the party received significant support online for its demand to be part of the line-up – the BBC said they had ” not demonstrated any comparable increase in support in either elections or opinion polls”.
Even should the party outpoll the Lib Dems – the starting point would be the junior coalition party’s performance at the 2010 general election which was ” substantially ahead of the Green party”, it suggested.
The BBC “will continue to keep any new evidence of increased support for the Green party under close review” it said.
Green party leader Natalie Bennett, said the broadcaster “would seem to be concentrating too much on past performance rather than looking at current interest in the Greens”.
Source Article from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/greens-ahead-lib-dems-poll-021456450.html
Greens ahead of Lib Dems in poll
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