The newly elected Green Party leader Caroline Lucas will not be entitled to a salary from the party’s headquarters as she is already a paid full-time politician, it has been confirmed.

Ms Lucas, the party's only representative in Westminster, won the leadership contest on Friday on a joint ticket with Jonathan Bartley, the welfare spokesperson, with 86 per cent of members’ votes.

They take over from Natalie Bennett, who has led the Greens for four years, and it will be the first job-share at the top of major political party in Britain.

But, unlike his colleague, Mr Bartley is entitled to receive a salary of £24,700 - one of the lowest salaries of political leader in the UK - as it will be his main form of income.

A party source added the new co-leader stepped down from his role as director of Ekklesia, a religious think tank, before the leadership contest. He is also responsible for the “razor sharp rhythm section” of band called the Mustangs, which formed in Hampshire in 2001.

“It doesn’t take any money,” the party source added. “Probably quite the opposite."

A spokesperson for the party told The Independent: “Caroline Lucas MP will not be taking a salary and Amelia Womack will continue to receive the deputy leader’s salary which is line with the London Living Wage,” The current Living Wage stands at £9.40 per hour in London.

The Green rule book adds: “Where the leader is also a paid full-time politician, this allowance will not be paid.” According to party source Ms Bennett was the first leader in the party's history to actually receive any kind of salary from the party's coffers.

Natalie Bennett on her own and Green Party's future

In her victory speech on Thursday Ms Lucas addressed the fallout from the European Union referendum and pledged to campaign for a second referendum on the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union. She added that her party could not accept a deal “that doesn’t offer hope and security to both those who voted to Leave and those who voted to Remain”.

Addressing the 1,200-strong audience Ms Lucas, the party’s only MP in Westminster for Brighton Pavilion, said the “since we last met as a Party, our country has been shaken by the bitterly fought EU referendum campaign and its political fallout”.

“Trust has been shattered and the truth lies buried. And at what point did it become OK to produce posters so dehumanising, so degrading and so despicable that they are compared to 1930s propaganda – even by a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer?