Politics

Revoke Article 50 Brexit petition hits 2m signatures – despite several crashes


More than 2,000,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the government to revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU.

The petition website crashed several times today but thousands are still adding their names to the poll every hour.

The petition took off in the hours after Prime Minister Theresa May made a televised address to the country last night.

It comes just eight days before the UK is due to crash out of the EU without a deal – although a delay is thought to be on the cards.

“The government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is ‘the will of the people’. We need to put a stop to this claim by proving the strength of public support now, for remaining in the EU,” the petition said.

Parliament must consider holding a debate on all petitions that gain more than 100,000 signatures.

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The petition passed 1m at 3pm

Theresa May is hoping to secure an extension to Article 50

 

However when asked for the prime minister’s view on the petition , a No 10 spokeswoman said May worried that failing to deliver Brexit would cause “potentially irreparable damage to public trust”.

She said: “The prime minister has long been clear that failing to deliver on the referendum result would be a failure of our democracy and something she couldn’t countenance.”

At about 9am a message appeared stating that the site was “down for maintenance” and asking users to “please try again later”.

A House of Commons spokesperson said: “The petitions site is experiencing technical difficulties and we are working to get it running again urgently. It has been caused by a large and sustained load on the system.”

Jean-Claude Juncker greets Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May

Theresa May has said failing to deliver Brexit would be a ‘failure of democracy’

 

It crashed several other times throughout the day – seemingly due to the demand.

By 3pm the petition had obtained its millionth signature.

The poll has enjoyed widespread support from pro-EU celebrities such as Jennifer Saunders, Brian Cox and Hugh Grant.

However it is still some 2m short of the most successful ever petition in the website’s history.

More than 1.8 million people signed a petition calling for US President Donald Trump to be prevented from making a state visit to Britain, leading to a debate in parliament in 2017.

More than 4 million people signed another petition in 2016 which called for another EU referendum in the event that neither the remain or leave camps achieved 60 percent of the vote.

A People’s March is set to be held in London on Tuesday, finishing in Parliament Square.

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