Petition for New Election

[DoraGray]

There is a petition on the Petition Section of the UK Government and parliament website calling for a new General Election.

These petitions can be signed by anyone and anyone with an email address and a postcode can sign it in a second and once any petition gains 100,000 signatures, Parliament has to consider debating it.

This particular petition has gained over 2 million signatures in a very short space of time and is gaining more every minute.

AIBU to think that the government should take it down or at the very least ignore it. It is an attempt by the far right to destabilise.

What misinformation?

And what's the alternative anyway? Farage, he's responsible for a lot of what's gone wrong. The Tories after the last 14 years.

I don't care for this government and didn't vote for them (I voted for an independent) but I'm not seeing an alternative.

It's like the Brexit referendum. OK you don't like the EU, but what's the alternative? It's not better

I think it’s absolutely fine and healthy to voice discontent in our politicians. It’s less fine and healthy for media controlled by people with an interest in disrupting the country to try to manipulate that discontent.

This is just a petition. Some (I recant my late night overestimate!) of the signatures are ineligible but many are not, but that in no way means our government is now weaker or obliged to consider calling an election. It is, as many on here have said, an expression from some voters that they are not happy. There are ALWAYS unhappy voters in a democracy.

I think the right tend to make the most noise in the UK media (as the liberals tend to in America). The libs were relentless about Trump throughout his last term and the right will be about Starmer and were from day one.

The right wing press were very soft on the Tories for at least most of the last 14 years, through all their terrible governance and policy disasters. Labour comes in and they're rabid about every policy from day one. Its just relentless attacks and negativity. That fuels a culture that this petition is started in. Twitter is even worse with Musk and all the bot accounts and right wing commentators.

Labour might well lead to their own downfall, but whatever they do they won't be given a chance

tl;dr - the employees' opinions don't matter, because they don't understand anything that's happening and don't have access to all the information.

Of course voters' opinions matter. That's why they get a vote.

Labour can go lower I'm sure, we'll see how they reconcile a contracting private sector and public spending next year without that £70bn tax and borrowing.

Well thanks for quoting me and just repeating pretty much what i said, as for you keep repeating there are alot of signatures that are fake, spurious or erroneous that goes for pretty much ever petition/poll in existance and the data controllers and software database team behind this will quite simply filter these out as per usual.

So why do you keep trying to point this out as its some startling revelation. Its like telling everyone the sun rises every morning as its some amazing discovery 😴

I wasn’t simply agreeing with you - although as you say I do agree with the fact that this is a legitimate act of protest. It’s the fact that this is being painted as a much bigger deal than it is by people interested in damaging our democratic functions that upsets me.

Most parliamentary petitions do not have a number of ineligible signatures. The software should prevent anyone ineligible from signing in the first place but also, simply, most of them are about things like local
leisure centre closures. Sometimes people sign them twice by mistake or use fake names like Donald Duck. The fact that this one is attracting foreign signatures is notable.

No. Voters' opinions only matter once every five years. Everything that happens in between is nothing to do with them, because that's how representative democracy works.

The call for a petition is just pointless. But no surprise. Our local MP just destroyed his career. And just a couple of weeks later we've both had a letter from Reform with Farage's gurning mug on it telling us all about it.
We both have the opt out on the electoral register but that doesn't work when it's political campaigning.
Labour had a huge majority here, so gawd know what Farage, Tice and his minions hope to achieve telling us what we already know - our MP fucked up big style and is paying the price.
Likewise Labour have a huge majority in the house, so will doubtless have the debate that the petition demands and win it. Futile grandstanding and a waste of parliaments time.

Exactly. And I don’t remember any petitions for elections being got up when the Tories were in power, people were just waiting for democracy to take its course. But now the far right are stamping their feet and wailing each wah wah it’s not fair that Labour won we want an election.

Labour have a huge majority in the house, so will doubtless have the debate that the petition demands and win it.

Petition debates are not won or lost. They are merely had.

Everything that happens in between is nothing to do with them

It's a bit pointless to ignore public sentiment and it has everything to do with them since it's their taxpayer money

Not just the public but the CBI and other groups

And if Labour are doing badly and getting it wrong it does actually have an impact on growth, jobs and investment as stated yesterday by the CBI. I know you're keen but I doubt even Labour are totally immune to tanking over the next few years.

Yes you could only possibly disagree with this government if you are a ‘far right bot’.

Obviously people signing it do not believe it will result in another election. They are not ‘idiots’. They are people who are extremely angry about a government that has been elected under many false pretences and are busy wrecking the economy and leading us into all out war with Russia! They are working against our best interests.

Sorry I missed how they are wrecking the economy and leading us to war

Could someone explain the latter

The former - well you can't wreck what was already fucked

😂

Do you read?

Exactly. And the debates are usually attended by a handful of people in Westminster Hall. I think some people really don't understand how these things work.

You won’t remember it (possibly because it got less media coverage) but there was a petition for a general election in January, with around 300,000 signatures. It was debated in Westminster Hall.

And if Labour are doing badly and getting it wrong it does actually have an impact on growth, jobs and investment as stated yesterday by the CBI. I know you're keen but I doubt even Labour are totally immune to tanking over the next few years.

What's not being discussed is what would now be happening in the unlikely event that the Conservatives (or a ConRef coalition) had won the last election. A combination of mismanagement, internal infighting, and deliberate strategy meant that whoever was in government this term was going to have to make a choice of allowing the economy to tank through inaction or making some fairly hard-hitting decisions to try and bring things back on track.

In the dying year of the last government several commentators were quietly pointing out the scorched earth policy that the succession of ineffectual Tory prime ministers were running that both ensured they would lose the next election and set-up the takeover government with enough hard decisions that the Conservatives might be in a better position to win the election after.

What I find ironic is that the right-wing that's spent the last 8 years shouting "Snowflake!" at anyone that protested against their policies are now proving to be so fragile and demanding to be listened to now.

Those interested might want to read the Hansard of the WH debate on the last election petition. It gives a good view of how this would play out. The debate lasted 45 minutes.

Next General Election - Hansard - UK Parliament

Who says I'm keen? You're making a whole bunch of assumptions there.

You seem to be convinced that "the public aren't happy" is the same as "the government are doing badly", as though the government's main job is keeping the population happy. Do you really believe that?

EDIT: Since you disagree with the "nothing to do with them" bit...what involvement do you think the public have in government decisions, outside of elections?

@ntmdino my main point was mn doesn't reflect the polls that show 70% think they're doing worse

You then did a few posts on feelings and ignoring the public etc

Labour would probably like to have a more positive reaction at this stage, they must be the fastest for a new gov to lose all the lead

I find Labour's reaction intriguing as if they are unaware of how and why they're doing badly, so I guess that includes your posts. And yes contracting growth and the private sector is doing, there's no positive spin for that.

If they can't turn around the growth issue they've created I can see them making more 'difficult decisions' and they've already alienated a fair few groups

We'll see in about a year how they reconcile that gap in growth and spending

Main - mn is so hard to edit these days

i imagine Labour is acutely aware of the polls, and I don't think many people think they've landed well. They've made some avoidable mistakes that have hurt them, and it's been quite painful to watch. But they can't just throw their hands in the air and say that in those terms really!

It also means that decisions that might be the right ones but unpopular are lost in the mistakes. And actually we don't yet know which decisions might BE the right ones, as it's been such a short time. Projections aren't good, and I hope that the Treasury is taking a hard look at them and planning next steps, but this will play out and we'll have a much better sense of what (if anything) is improving next year.

The fact that they're ignoring vocal knee jerk responses, many from people who never supported them in the first place, is totally understandable. The issue will be how well they react to the impacts of their policies over time. I don't envy them the task, and I think they've made missteps, but I still fundamentally want them to have the chance to turn things around.

I feel quite assured that Labour are doing the best they can given the mess they have started with.

Anyway, I thought this was Conservative voter sour grapes…but can't be as a large majority haven't signed the petition.

I figure just over 6.8 million voted for the Conservatives. Only 2 million have signed the petition, so…4.8 million are ok with Labour.

4.8 million increases dramatically if we take into account all of those that voted for all other parties too! 😀

Not an issue that I can see.

Define "doing badly"?

The changes they're making are the kind that take 4-6 months to move the needle at all, so there is no metric by which to measure the success or failure accurately. In that case, you must still be going on about popularity.

With that in mind, you must be asserting that Labour are unaware of the fact that their decisions have been unpopular, which is a bit weird when Labour have repeatedly said right from the beginning that they knew these decisions were going to be unpopular. Far from being unaware, they predicted it.

As for my posts, you seem to keep wanting to make it personal. Not once have I said that a) Labour are popular for making these decisions, b) Labour should be popular for making these decisions, or even c) that the decisions Labour are making are the right ones. Why, then, are you making it about me?