GREENS will be “shut out” of national politics if Caroline Lucas loses a “savage” general election scrap with Labour, the party’s campaign manager warned at the weekend.

The party’s membership has soared by 42,000 in the last year, seeing the Greens outgrow the Lib Dems to become the third largest party in England and Wales.

And new members made up almost half of the 1,500 activists attending the party’s biggest ever conference, which concludes today in Liverpool.