The Green Party's former leader and only previous MP, Caroline Lucas, says they have a 'real chance' of winning in Stroud at the upcoming general election.

Speaking about the electoral pact between the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, the incumbent for Brighton Pavillion said the pact could make a difference on December 12.

She said: "The evidence suggests we may be heading again for another hung parliament in which case even just a handful of seats can make a difference which is why we are uniting behind a single remain candidate in a number of key seats in order to try and maximise that vote.

"We are doing it not because we do it lightly but because we have a horrible undemocratic unfair electoral system that means we have to try and game the system in that way.

"We want to make sure that when people do vote Green they have a chance of those votes translating into seats. Two million people voted Green in the European elections... and so what we want to do now is to try and turn those votes into real seats and in places like the Isle of Wight, Bristol West, Stroud, Bury St Edmunds and others we now a real chance of winning."

Current Green MEP Molly Scott Cato is the Unite to Remain candidate for Stroud, with the Lib Dems not standing as part of the electoral pact. She is attempting to defeat incumbent David Drew (Labour). Siobhan Bailey (Conservative), Desi Latimer (Brexit Party) and Glenville Gogerly (Libertarian Party) are also standing.

In the 2019 European elections more than 12,000 voters in the Stroud Counting Area backed the Greens, with more than 9,000 supporting the Liberal Democrats. Less than 3,000 cast a vote for Labour.

However, at the last general election in 2017 the Green and Lib Dem vote share in the Stroud constituency was just 5.5 per cent.