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Featured Image Credit: Henry Nicholls - WPA Pool/Getty Images/UK Government and Parliament
Topics: UK News, Politics, Keir Starmer
Joe Harker
Topics: UK News, Politics, Keir Starmer
A petition to try and get the UK to hold another general election has gained over two million signatures in just a few days.
We did just have a general election a few months ago in which the Labour party won a landslide in terms of the seats in the House of Commons, though some people have decided they would like another one sooner rather than later.
The election result was not particularly surprising for most people but the new government, the first time Labour have been in power in the UK since 2010, has been beset by a number of issues.
About five months into the job, the new government has had to figure out to plug a financial black hole of billions of quid, deal with destructive riots, face a backlash over ending the winter fuel allowance for some pensioners, introduce a new budget and just had a protest from farmers unhappy that they might have to start paying inheritance tax.
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It's safe to say there wasn't exactly a long honeymoon period for this lot, and now the most popular petition currently going on the government's site is asking for a new general election.
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On the government's website for petitions, there's one titled 'Call A General Election'.
The aim of the petition, which was started by a man called Michael Westwood who told the Daily Express he thinks voters have been 'betrayed' by Labour, is to have another vote and presumably get a different government since if you were happy with the current one you'd be unlikely to sign the petition.
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On the site, the petition says: "I would like there to be another general election. I believe the current Labour Government have gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election."
Westwood revealed he was a Conservative voter at the last general election, which brought an end to 14 years of Tory government.
Since being started a few days ago, the petition has gained over two million signatures and has benefitted from being shared and boosted by a number of prominent right wing figures, including all Reform UK MPs and a number of Tory MPs.
It was also shared by Twitter boss Elon Musk, who has claimed that the UK had become a 'tyrannical police state'.
Nope, this petition has no ability to force a general election to be held.
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The power to call one rests technically with the King, but in actuality, it's with the government - namely the prime minister.
The government can call a general election whenever it likes provided it's within the appropriate time limit, the latest date they can hold the next one on is 15 August, 2029.
Any petition which reaches 10,000 signatures will receive an official response from the government, though there is nothing stopping this response from being plenty of words which could be summed up as 'no'.
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The petition has long since surpassed the 100,000 signature threshold that means it'll be considered for a debate in parliament.
Getting lots of signatures on a petition doesn't guarantee anything, but hey, at least you got a few MPs to chat about it for a couple of hours.
This is not the first time a petition has gained millions of signatures and achieved the sum total of zilch beyond being a topic of discussion for a few days.
A few years back, over six million people signed a petition calling on the British government to revoke Article 50 and stay in the European Union, the government responded by saying they wouldn't be doing that.
In theory only UK citizens and residents can sign it. In practice, absolutely anybody can sign this thing if they don't mind lying about themselves on the internet.
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To sign the petition, you need to put in your name, email address, country of origin and give your postcode.
However, there's nothing to stop you from lying and claiming you're a citizen or resident of the UK as long as you have an email address and can stick in an actual postcode that exists.
Many of the signatures on the petition will be from people who genuinely are UK citizens or residents, as inews says that there are no suggestions that the signatures aren't valid as UK citizens can vote from abroad.
At time of writing, there hasn't been an official response from the government attached to the petition.
Keir Starmer was asked about it while he was on This Morning today (25 November) and he said having a general election just because of a petition 'isn't how our system works', acknowledging that there were 'very many people' who didn't vote for him at the election.
He said: "I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election.
“I’m not surprised that many of them want a re-run. That isn’t how our system works. There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in in the first place.
"So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make every day."
With that in mind, don't expect the government's official response to be calling a general election, if you were really hoping for one I'm sorry to say you're going to be very disappointed.