Green Party conference: Back vote reform, Bennett urges Corbyn

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett has urged Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to back her call for electoral reform.

Ms Bennett said the Conservatives' "tottering" Commons majority could be overturned to create a "fair, simple system".

Addressing her party conference in Bournemouth, she also sought to differentiate her party from Mr Corbyn's.

The Greens say this is the party's "biggest-ever" conference.

In her speech, Ms Bennett hailed what she said was the Greens' membership "surge" and said the re-election of left-wing Syriza in Greece was an example of "the future of politics in Europe".

She said her party was leading on the issue of climate change, saying the government's energy policies had "failed".

She spoke of the need to "break the shackles" of the first-past-the-post electoral system, calling on Mr Corbyn to "join with us and others to deliver a fair, simple system in which voters can participate with confidence that their vote counts".

Analysis by Eleanor Garnier, BBC political correspondent

Natalie Bennett welcomed her party's enthusiastic supporters to a sun drenched Bournemouth where she warned what she called the rotten and old politics was in its last throes.

She told the conference that British politics was moving in the Green Party's direction and that historians would look back and see 2015 as the year that change started.

Ms Bennett dismissed concern that Labour, under Jeremy Corbyn, would steal votes from the Greens.

But despite increasing their vote four fold at the general election the party only won seat. They've got much more work to do before we see more Green MPs in Westminster.

But setting out what she saw as the difference between the Greens and Mr Corbyn's Labour party, she said Labour-led councils were "too often in the pockets of the developers and big business".

The Green Party says its membership has quadrupled to 67,000 in a year.

Ahead of the conference, Ms Bennett said she believed British politics was shifting in her party's direction.

Over the four-day event speeches are also expected from Green Party deputy leaders Dr Shahrar Ali and Amelia Womack and Welsh Greens leader Pippa Bartolotti.

Ms Lucas is the party's sole representative in the House of Commons

The conference comes after a record vote share of 3.8% for the Green Party at May's general election. However, its increase in support did not result in another parliamentary seat.

Ms Lucas was returned to Parliament as the MP for Brighton Pavilion, with an increased share of the vote that came largely at the expense of the Liberal Democrats.

But Ms Bennett finished third in the Labour seat in Holborn and St Pancras.

'People's politics'

Speaking to BBC Breakfast she dismissed the suggestion that Labour, under Jeremy Corybn, would squeeze her party, saying there had been a "real shift" in British politics and it was "coming in our direction".

"The people who'll be left isolated are the Tories," the Green leader said, adding: "We're doing the new politics, the people's politics."

The party will also be collecting donations at its conference for the people based in the migrant camp at Calais.

Deputy leader Amelia Womack, who visited the camp, said the crisis engulfing Europe would be helped by "dispelling the myth" that those in camps are a threat to the UK.

She said the donations would help to improve the living conditions of the people in Calais.

"As we head into winter, it's important that everyone there has access to adequate shelter, clothing, shoes and hygiene products," she said.