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Natalie Bennett’s Green Party came under fire today after research found that it has fewer black and ethnic minority candidates than any other major party - including Ukip.

Only four per cent of the party’s general election hopefuls are from minority communities, according to a study by the Constitution Unit at University College London. Of 357 Green candidates selected so far, 15 have BME backgrounds and the other 342 are white.

The proportion of selected candidates with BME backgrounds was nine per cent for Labour, 11 per cent for the Conservatives and 10 per cent for the Liberal Democrats.

Even Nigel Farage’s Ukip, which calls for stronger immigration controls, has 24 BME candidates, which is six per cent of its total. However, neither Ukip nor the Greens has picked a BME candidate for a winnable seat.

Cross-party group Operation Black Vote said voters would find the Green Party record surprising and urged them to do more to promote BME talent.

Ashok Viswanathan, OBV’s deputy director, said: “I’m not surprised at all. The fact is all the parties have failed to put into practice a comprehensive programme to recruit, retain and promote BME talent.” He said there was no evidence that BME communities were less interested in the environment or other Green policy issues.

“If you speak to the Black Environmental Network, they have a huge database of people who are concerned about green issues,” he said.

“Issues like the environment directly affect inner-city dwellers, who include many black communities.”

Jennifer Hudson, co-author of the study called Parliamentary Candidates UK, said: “Few would have guessed the Greens to trail Ukip. The lack of diversity amongst Green candidates is particularly noteworthy given the election of Shahrar Ali — one of the party’s two deputy leaders — and the first BME deputy of a UK parliamentary party.”

Mr Ali is standing in Brent Central.

Benali Hamdache, the Green Party’s equalities spokesman, said it was still announcing candidates and collecting data about them. “Once we have this data we can better reflect on how much more we have to do on increasing the diversity of our candidates,” he said.

“What we do know is that one in seven candidates in London is from a BME background — and we have people from all walks of life standing for the Greens up and down the country.”

He added: “The Green Party is committed to standing up for the rights and concerns of BME communities and we need to ensure we’re doing that not only through our policies but in the way we do politics as well.

“That’s why we have quotas for BME candidates in European Elections, a BME network to recruit candidates and support their candidacy, and it’s why we launched a group dedicated to representing BME members of our party at our recent spring conference.”