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Green Party leader Zack Polanski has been warned that he is "playing with fire" by refusing to back the triple lock on pensions. Support for the Left-wing party has surged in recent weeks, but campaigners are concerned it has not followed Reform UK's lead and pledged to keep the measure that ensures the state pension matches inflation and wages and rises by at least 2.5% a year.

Mr Polanski stopped short of promising to keep the triple lock, key to preventing pensioner poverty, when asked by the Daily Express at the launch of the Green Party's local election campaign on Thursday. Dennis Reed, of campaign group Silver Voices, warned the party is "playing with fire if it fails to come off the fence before the May elections".

He said it would be "unconscionable" to weaken this safeguard in the "current cost-of-living crisis".

"Older voters are fed up with being patronised by politicians and having our votes taken for granted, and if any party, including the Greens, thinks it can ignore our concerns, it will pay an electoral price," warned Mr Reed.

Mr Polanski said the Greens' policy on the triple lock will be set out in its next manifesto.

He strongly rejected the idea that the interests of older and younger people should be pitted against each other, describing this as a "classic divide-and-rule tactic".

"I think the real divide here is between the 99%, which includes younger people, older people and everyone in between, and the 1%," he said.

Last week, Reform UK announced plans to keep the triple lock, with Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick saying he had found savings that would be "more than sufficient to cover the increase in public spending" that keeping the pension provision entails.

The Daily Express has a long-running crusade to protect the triple lock. The Green Party's 2024 manifesto promised to "ensure that pensions are always uprated in line with inflation and keep pace with wage rises across the economy".

Mr Polanski used the campaign event to make a bid for the support of Remain voters, describing Brexit as "one of the most catastrophic decisions this country has ever made".

The eco-socialist party has enjoyed a poll bounce since Mr Polanski became leader last year and has even overtaken Labour in some surveys.

The latest YouGov poll put the Greens level with Sir Keir Starmer's party on 16%, while the Tories were second on 19% and Reform ahead on 24%.