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An online petition calling for a second EU referendum which has reached 3 million signatures is being investigated after claims it has been hacked.

The petition-the largest in British history- calls on the government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum.

But it has now emerged that the House of Commons Petitions Committee is investigating the petition over allegations of fraud.

The committee has confirmed it has removed 77,000 signatures already which were fraudulently added.

It is thought tens of thousands of signatures on the petition were from the Vatican City and North Korea.

Pranksters 4Chan are thought to have hacked the petition.

One user on the 4Chan website message board wrote: "They'll look at the IPs and wonder how the f*** people from north Korea and the Vatican are voting."

In a statement released on Twitter, Helen Jones, chair of the Petitions Committee, said: “We take fraud in the petitions system very seriously, because it undermines the process of parliament democracy.

"The Government Digital Service are taking action to investigate and, where necessary, remove fraudulent signatures.

(Image: Reuters)

"People adding fraudulent signatures to this petition should know they they undermine the cause they pretend to support.”

The committee added it would consider the petition at its meeting next week and will decide whether to schedule a debate on it.

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It earlier emerged that the petition was actually started a month ago by Leave campaigner Oliver Healey-an 'English Democrat' activist.

As the petition took on a life of its own, Healey took to his Facebook page to clarify the matter, saying: "This petition was created at a time (over a month ago) when it was looking unlikely that ‘leave’ were going to win, with the intention of making it harder for ‘remain’ to further shackle us to the EU.

"Due to the result, the petition has been hijacked by the remain campaign.

"Admittedly, my actions were premature however, my intentions were as stated above. THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE OF A LEAVE VICTORY AT THAT TIME!!!"

Parliament is required to consider all petitions with more than 100,000 signatures for debate in the House of Commons.

Nigel Farage said back in May that 52-48 win for the Remain side in the EU referendum would be “unfinished business”.

In an interview with the Mirror the Ukip leader said such a narrow margin would prompt him to fight for a second referendum.

He said: “In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it.”

Britain voted to leave the EU with a 52-48 split.

A breakdown of where the petition was most popular was illustrated on an online map.