THE former leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett, has told Stourbridge activists there is a ‘significant chance Brexit won’t happen.’

At the Chemistry Café on January 31, she said there was a good chance Britain would stay in the EU.

She told the audience at the Dudley Green Party event that there could well be another referendum.

Ms Bennett said: “I have been saying I think there is about a 50 per cent chance of a ratification referendum this year, I think I’m going to increase that. Who knows what’s happening with Brexit?”

She added the Greens had to build bridges across to those who did vote leave and understand why they did.

She said taking back control of the country means a fair voting system, reform of tax laws, stopping privatisation of NHS and reversing privatisation of public services.

“All of those things you find when you talk to leavers most of them agree on,” she said.

Ms Bennett, who led the Greens between 2012 and 2016, also called for the need to rethink the economy, declaring that there was ‘nothing inevitable’ about the rise of multi-national companies.

She told the meeting: “Choices have been made to let those companies dominate, we can make different choices and reprogram the economy. The economy is surely to meet the needs of people. It’s not delivering security or certainty about the future. It is not meeting people’s needs."

Ms Bennett said there was a need to ‘entirely rethink what a strong economy looks like’ and focus on small, independent businesses to ensure money stays locally.

“Money sitting in a tax haven is nearly useless. Money is only useful when it’s going round and round and being spent,” she said.

Ms Bennett referenced the 40 per cent crash in the share price of Capita, one of the UK’s biggest outsourcers, saying ‘We are in a state of economic crisis’.

“We’ve had a dominance of a political philosophy that said greed is good, inequality doesn’t matter and we can keep trashing the planet. That’s failed now even in its own terms.

“We need to build something different and now is the time."

“There are enough resources in the world for everyone to have a decent life. They need to be distributed very differently,” she said.

The former Green Party leader also called for the introduction of a Universal Basic Income of £80 a week, saying that under that system ‘nobody would be left with no money at all’.

“We have so many people so desperate in terms of zero-hours contracts and minimum wage. We have to make sure everyone can have a decent life without fear," she added.

Ms Bennett also declared that the party needed to take on ‘media dinosaurs’ and fight to get more media attention.

She took aim at UKIP saying: “One of UKIP’s advantages of getting press coverage over the years is they say and do stupid things.

“We need to be sensible and exciting at the same time."

Brothwood bites back - see his reaction here