Revoke Article 50: Remainers have been ‘silenced’ says woman who set up viral petition Margaret Georgiadou said she did not hate Leave voters

“They are the tools of demagogues and dictators” Margaret Georgiadou

Remain voters have been “silenced and ignored,” says the woman who set up the viral petition to revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU.

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Margaret Georgiadou said the reason she launched the appeal on the Government’s official petitions website was because nobody appeared to be fighting the corner of the people who voted for Britain to stay in the EU.

“I was very annoyed that Remainers seemed to be silenced and ignored and no one seemed to be doing anything about it, so I thought I’d go for what I really want, which is to revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU.”

She told LBC radio that she could not believe how popular her petition had become.

Support from celebrities and MPs

Since launching in February, the petition has garnered more than 3.3 million signatures. Numbers rapidly rose after Theresa May asked the EU for an extension to Article 50 on Wednesday. It has received the support of MPs and celebrities, who in turn are urging members of the public to add their names.

Despite the increasing popularity of the petition, Mrs May has said she does not believe in revoking Article 50 to cancel Brexit and is intending to bring her controversial Brexit deal before MPs for a third time next week.

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Brexit experts have said the petition would need millions more signatures for Parliament to take any action.

Ms Georgiadou said she hoped to garner the support of 17.4 million people – the same as the number of people who voted to Leave in the 2016 referendum.

Problem with referendums

She said she did not “hate leavers” but believed that the very structure of referendums meant they were undemocratic.

“It’s majoritarian, the majority wins, it’s ruled by the majority for the majority – sod the minority.

“Whereas true democracy includes everybody’s opinion in society,” she told the radio station.

“This is the problem with referendums. They are the tools of demagogues and dictators. They silence the people who lose,” she said, adding that referendums divided people.

Ms Georgiadou also took aim at MPs for their handling of Brexit. “How can they sit so blithely debating the oblivion of my country? How can they sit there so calmly discussing no deal?”

Petition hotspots

The petition continues to gather support at a rapid speed. A “heat map” of the petition shows the areas where the greatest support lies.

“Glancing at the heat map suggests the petition response numbers mirror the Remain hotspots in the 2016 Referendum; notably university cities and towns with a relatively high student population like Warwick, Canterbury and Oxbridge,” said Professor Alex de Ruyter, director of Birmingham City University’s Centre for Brexit Studies.

“London also features particularly strongly, perhaps not surprisingly given its population and strong remain vote in 2016.

“In contrast, strong leave-voting areas feature as ‘not spots’ such as Walsall North with only 356 signatories at this stage.

“While it is difficult to draw firm conclusions, it appears that opinions continue to be entrenched on both sides of the debate. However, areas with a lower response could simply depict a wider lack of political engagement so one could not necessarily infer here that not supporting the petition automatically means you are a Leave supporter.”

There has been speculation that the petition may have been taken over by bots with some critics pointing to signatures from Russia and Kyrgyzstan.

Labour MP and Remain supporter Blair McDougall said: “Seen a few people talking about how the revoke petition is compromised because someone signed it from Kyrgyzstan. That was me. I’m here for two weeks for work. People move around the world. Imagine that.”