Green Party rejects Plaid Cymru call for votes in Wales

Pippa Bartolotti says Green Party membership has "surged" in Wales

The leader of the Green Party in Wales has brushed off suggestions their supporters should vote for Plaid Cymru in seats the nationalists could win.

Pippa Bartolotti said she understood the appeal by Plaid's general election co-ordinator Lord Wigley, who urged Welsh people in England to vote Green.

But she said Green membership in Wales had "surged" fourfold in 12 months.

"These are people who have joined the Green Party - they haven't joined Plaid Cymru," she told BBC Wales.

Together with the SNP, Plaid and the Greens have said they would form an anti-austerity alliance to maximise their influence in a hung parliament.

The three parties also oppose renewing Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system.

But interviewed for the Sunday Politics Wales programme, Ms Bartolotti said she "wouldn't go that far" when asked to respond to Lord Wigley's comparison of the Trident base in Scotland with Auschwitz - a comment he later apologised for.

A poll for BBC Wales on Wednesday showed support for the Greens had risen from 2% to 6% in Wales since September, but the party remained in sixth place.