Call to put brakes on UK’s EU exit is most popular petition ever on parliament website

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The petition asking the British government to revoke article 50 and reconsider its plan to exit the European Union has passed the 5m-signature mark, following a massive demonstration in London on Saturday.

As of 11pm on Sunday, 5.3m people had signed the petition, making it the most popular to have been submitted to the parliament website. The previous highest total of 4,150,260 was for a 2016 petition calling for a second referendum should the initial poll not provide a definitive enough result.

The petition continued to grow following Saturday’s march, which organisers claimed saw more than a million people take to the streets of London.

The woman behind the petition, Margaret Georgiadou, said on Saturday she had received death threats. Georgiadou tweeted that on Friday night she had received three such threats via telephone.

She also said she had deleted her Facebook account after receiving a “torrent of abuse”.

Q&A What does the government do with online petitions? Show Hide After 10,000 signatures, petitions get a response from the government. After 100,000 signatures, petitions are considered for debate in parliament. Since the online petition service was launched, the government has responded to over 300 petitions, and 55 petitions have been debated in parliament. The government has already responded to a previous petition about revoking Article 50 on 19 February 2019, stating: 'The government’s policy is not to revoke Article 50. Instead, we continue to work with parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European Union, as planned, on March 29th'. This petition, which gained 148,912 signatures, was also debated in parliament on 11 March 2019.

There have been conspiracy theories about the petition on both sides of the debate, with some saying crashes on the site since the petition launched on Thursday were a plot to prevent further signatures. Others claimed that a small proportion of signatures from overseas IP addresses – including one from North Korea – meant the petition had been hijacked by bots. In fact, 96% of the signatures were from the UK.

On Saturday’s march, protesters waving EU flags and carrying placards weaved their way from Hyde Park Corner to Parliament Square.

Play Video 6:17 'People’s vote' march: up close with anti-Brexit protesters at the 'biggest ever demo' – video

MPs lined up on stage to address the crowds and call on the government to provide a “people’s vote” on Brexit.

Brexit: Hammond denies plotting to oust May but admits deal may not pass Read more

Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, accused the prime minister of having lost control of the Brexit process and said he could only back her deal if “you let the people vote on it too”.

The former Conservative MP Anna Soubry, now a member of the Independent Group, urged her parliamentary colleagues to “put your country first, get into the lobbies and vote for a people’s vote”.

Also addressing the crowds, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, called for article 50 to be withdrawn.

“It’s time to give us, the British people, a final say on Brexit,” he said.