Alison Johnstone and Natalie Bennett
Green Member of the Scottish Parliament Alison Johnstone with Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in September.

Total UK green party membership has just passed that of the Liberal Democrats.

With UK-wide membership at 44,713 the announcement means that together Greens are now the 4th largest party in the UK, behind only Labour, the Conservatives and the SNP.

Anti-austerity parties have seen a surge in membership in the last six months with the SNP also seeing huge growth in support.

The news was published by the Green Party of England and Wales just seconds ago who collated data from the Green Party in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Green Party.

more than ukipUK-wide Green party membership overtook that of UKIP yesterday with more than 2,000 people joining in the space of just 24 hours.

Yesterday a story broken by website Open Democracy received widespread press coverage in claiming that Green membership would overtake UKIP and the Lib Dems within a week.  These milestones were in fact passed in one day.