The website crashed on Thursday morning as voters made their opinion known
With just over a week to go until the Brexit deadline, and with particular no end in sight to the mayhem, a petition to revoke Article 50 has crashed the government website while surpassing one million signatures.
Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement has been rejected by huge margins in two parliamentary votes and her request to extend the process of leaving the EU by a few weeks was poorly received across the Channel.
On Wednesday, EU Council president Donald Tusk told the prime minister it would be conditional on her deal passing through the House of Commons. In response, May castigated politicians for not accepting her plan – a tactic which went down like a lead balloon with the vast majority of MPs.
A petition to revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU was subsequently launched and 300,000 UK voters had registered their support by midnight.
Come 9am on Thursday morning, that number had soared past 500,000 and the high amount of traffic crashed the government website hosting the petition. By noon, it had beaten 800,000 and the million mark was beaten at mid-afternoon
Official petitions need only 100,000 signatures to be considered for a parliament debate.
Looking the map of those backing the petition, it is spread quite wide across the country with Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, London, Manchester and Edinburgh the cities each adding thousands of voices to halting Brexit.
“The government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is ‘the will of the people’,” reads the petition’s statement. “We need to put a stop to this claim by proving the strength of public support now, for remaining in the EU. A People’s Vote may not happen – so vote now.”
The official Petitions Committee said the rate of signatures being added was the highest it had ever dealt with, at around 2,000 per minute.
The rate of signing is the highest the site has ever had to deal with and we have had to make some changes to ensure the site remains stable and open for signatures and new petitions. Thanks for bearing with us.
— Petitions Committee (@HoCpetitions) March 21, 2019
