But only if people keep on signing it!
Anthony Webber
A Petition calling for a General Election, which started on November 20th, already has about 3 million signatures.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
This is an amazing achievement, and it looks like it is on track to beat the previous Parliamentary Petition record of 6.1 million signatures.
(This was a call to Revoke Article 50 and for the UK to stay in the EU, and was in November 2019).
Because in the 2016 EU Referendum, 17,410,742 ( 51.89%) voted to leave the EU , 6.1 million signatures were simply not enough to justify having another referendum so soon.
Since 16,141,241 voted to remain in the EU , it could even be argued that the remain side had lost support.
The Petition calling for a fresh General Election needs to be considered in the same context.
If the results of that are considered, Labour obtained 9,708,716 votes (33.7%), so a call for a fresh General Election simply cannot be justified by a Petition with 3 million or so votes.
If the Petition keeps on accelerating and eventually has more signatures than the votes Labour obtained, and reaches about 10 million, then that will be 20% of those who were registered to vote ( 48,208,507). That will be justification for calling a General Election.
The difficulty will be that a General Election is called to elect individual constituency MP’s. It is not to elect one party to be in government, although in practice that is what happens
It would not be fair on many MP’s , including a number of Independent ones, who have had nothing to do with the current government’s appalling record, to find they were up for election again, through no fault of theirs.
However, that is all negated by the bizarre circumstances under which the previous Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, MP, called a General Election well before the January 2025 deadline that he had to call one by.
If his Majesty the King allowed for the dissolution of Parliament for the July 2024 General Election, then there is every argument for him to take heed of this Petition and ensure a fresh General Election is called.
Although Sir Keir Starmer rightly said it is not our system to call General Elections because of Petitions, there are special circumstances involved in this.
The government party, Labour, is accused of breaking electoral promises, and millions believe that is the case.
If more people sign the Petition than who voted Labour, it seems that Labour have lost the confidence of the country.
In this event, the King should be asked to accept what the Petition says and to ensure there is a General Election.
The King does have some constitutional duties, especially in exceptional circumstances, and if he does not act for the people, then there will be a crisis with the Monarchy potentially losing support.
There are other options though:
Some of the dissatisfaction is related to the policies of the previous Conservative government.
There must also be recognition that the discontent with the Labour governing party is to do with some of its key policies and not all of them.
The government could decide there was not sufficient public support for some of these, and either ditch them, make them more palatable, remove some of their leadership team or have individual referendums on the key issues
Having more direct democracy would demonstrate that the government will abide by the people’s wishesbuild up trust in the system.
Key issues which the public are not happy with include:
The relentless pursuit of net zero policies, which are having detrimental economic consequences.
The over emphasis on the “woke” agenda and reducing free speech
The changes in inheritance tax
The rises in employers National Insurance contributions
The huge rises in energy and costs of living ( mainly brought about by taking sides in the Ukraine/Russia conflict)
The £18bn committed to Ukraine and general warmongering in relation to the Israel/Gaza situation.
There is a perception that the government puts its own citizens last, particularly in relation to the massive immigration problems.
If the public want to have a significant change of direction, then 9 or 10 million signatures need to be obtained.
It is possible because much of the mainstream media have been promoting this Petition.
They have their own reasons because it is highly unusual for them to push Petitions, but it makes a immense difference when they do.
It also seems that although this Petition was started by a Conservative voter and has been backed by many Conservatives and Reform UK MP’s, there is more widespread support coming from other parties and Independents too.
The Petitioner, Michael Westwood, is a publican with three pubs in the Midlands.
He said he started the Petition out of frustration with the Labour government, and did not expect it to get anywhere.
It shows that the Parliamentary Petitions process can work for the individual citizen, and create surprise results.
After this Petition, the evolving Parliamentary Petitions process will never be the same.
It could result in a Swiss type of system where Petitions obtaining an acceptable number of signatures ( in the UK’s case about 1 million), could result in a Referendum.
That can only be a positive.
But Petitions to call an early General Election- the bar would have to be set far higher at about 20%.
It is issues the public are concerned about, not General Elections.
Anthony Webber
Independent Political Commentator
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