Anna Lamche interviewing Caroline Lucas

GREEN Party organisers say they must push on with their quest to win more seats in the House of Commons – even if it isn’t the quickest way to score a newspaper headline.

Members have watched groups such as Just Stop Oil take disruptive direct action in an attempt to push climate change to the top of the political agenda.

Many activists have risked arrest in a series of incidents which have grabbed attention at sporting events like Wimbledon and the Snooker World Championships. They say there is no time to wait for elections.

But the Greens’ only MP, Caroline Lucas, insists they can shift the dial by winning four seats in the House of Commons.

Asked whether the parliamentary route would be too slow, she told the New Journal on Friday: “Of course the machinery at hand is terribly flawed and horribly slow, and I really sympathise and feel it myself when you say that. But turning our back on the parliamentary system would be such a big mistake.”

She added: “We know we can do really well at a local level, we’ve just had some of our best ever results and we have more Green councillors than ever before. People are getting more and more used to voting Green – and more and more are feeling disillusioned with the main parties.

“I think there’s a sense of: ‘yes, let’s get rid of the Conservatives’ but  Labour, frankly, isn’t offering a bold enough alternative. It feels to me like there really is a space on the political agenda.”

Sian Berry, the former co-leader of the party and a councillor in Camden, said: “I’ve said before people like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion – they are the fire alarm, which has to be annoying and it’s got to wake you up. “

But in the end you need the fire brigade to turn up, and that’s what we are.”

She said she would always support “people’s right to take direct action when needed” – but that they were trying to “get things done in a way that doesn’t involve the police getting involved”.