Children can sign anti-Brexit petition

[CrushedVelvet]

Those of you with children who feel strongly anti-Brexit may be interested to know that they may be allowed to sign the anti-Brexit petition that is currently going viral.

The rules state that you have to be a UK citizen or resident. You also have to have your own e-mail address, as obviously they want to ensure that individual people don't sign multiple times.

As this is a petition, not an official vote, you do NOT have to be on the electoral register. This means that children wishing to express their own views may sign - as may non-resident citizens and non-citizen residents.

According to the BBC, Andrea Leadsom said: "Should it reach 17.4 million respondents then I am sure there will be a very clear case for taking action" [see www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47652071].

It is currently at over 2.6million.

I only realized that children could sign after my 11 year-old expressed anger and frustration that he could not sign. This prompted me to double-check the rules and discover that in fact he could, which he did with great enthusiasm this morning.

The link to sign the petition is:

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584

Personally, I feel that the country should pause at this point and have a proper second referendum in case the prevailing view has changed in the past 3 years. Most people have a lot clearer idea of what Brexit entails now than they did in 2016. For example, I don't recall any mention of the Irish border issue then. I do remember prominent claims about all the extra money Brexit would bring to the UK, which have since been revealed to be blatant lies. Instead we face a damaged economy and trouble staffing the NHS.

If you or your friends/family are eligible and feel strongly about this, please sign the petition! Thank you.

Well we can argue til the cows come home about how everyone should be bringing up their kids. But as long as the government petition site doesn't specify a minimum age for signing, as far as I'm concerned children can sign. You can object all you like but the only specified restriction is that you have to be a UK resident or British citizen. No one is breaking the rules here.

5.6 million now and steadily climbing.

It is interesting to check the number of signatures remember they are NOT votes in each constituency against

• electorate
• population
• sitting MPs majority
• referendum result

My teens signed. They know enough to know that Brexit will strip them of a whole bunch of rights and opportunities as EU citizens. They are really angry about that, as are their friends. This petition is the only tiny bit of say in this they have.

Not really steadily climbing, it's slowing all the time. Doubt it will end up much above 6 million.

We’ll see I guess.

Both my teens have signed, both feel they have been sold down the river by a bunch of old people who will probably be dead by the time the really disastrous effects of Brexit kick in.

It is interesting to check the number of signatures in each constituency

It's interesting but the numbers are not very meaningful if everyone's children are signing.

@pointythings you really think your children are so well informed that they've really understood the issues and are not influenced by their obviously remain parents? It would be more believable if they had opposing views to you.

It's funny how people accept that Islamic extremists can be influenced by their parents but when it comes to Brexit, suddenly children have independent thought .

My teens are definitely better informed about this than my mum who STILL insists that the Asian men involved in the child sex abuse scandal were only able to be here because we are in the EU.

Both my teens have signed, both feel they have been sold down the river by a bunch of old people who will probably be dead by the time the really disastrous effects of Brexit kick in

How respectful - you must be so proud

lboogy my girls are 16 and 18 so yes, well capable of understanding the issues. Not little kids parroting my opinion. We disagree on a lot of things including gender politics.

It's funny how on this thread it seems to be the case that left leaning young people must be parroting their parents, but right leaning ones are of course independent and astute thinkers.

Pointythings: well, quite. Also, this goes beyond left/ right. I've said a couple of times upthread that my kids can see the direct impact that Brexit will have on themselves and on family members (many of whose citizenship status will be/is being affected). That is their reason for taking a position and they are entitled to have that view.

There is still space imo to prompt children into thinking why others with different life experiences may vote differently; whilst deciding that voting in one's own group's interests is the sensible or right action.

Surely this waters down the impact of the petition though? Children aren't allowed to vote, so their opinions weren't relevant when we had the referendum. It was the adults of voting age who voted to leave, just like it would be if we had another referendum. Suddenly adding a whole new group of people into the mix who weren't part of the initial decision and aren't able to influence another decision makes the whole thing a bit pointless, to my mind. It certainly makes it unworthy of being evidence for having another referendum, at least. Which begs the question... What's the point of it?

I believe Brexit IS going to happen, but if the government want another referendum they will announce it in due course so that the voting populace can cast their votes again. Sorry, I know you feel strongly about this, but the petition is a waste of time and effort IMO. (No, I didn't vote for Brexit!)

It's a petition calling for a debate on Revoke, in parliament.

That is the point of it.

My mother was a bullying narcissist, she could have made us all sign anything she wanted (or just signed it on my behalf without asking). Until I became a free adult, my vote would have been meaningless.

Is there a leave petition? I'm sure my future babies, dog and cats would like a say.

Alex Salmond thought by allowing 16-17 year old's to vote in the Scottish independence referendum the yes vote would win easily, didnt work out that way, there not allowed to vote in any other election

Hellen yes there is. It's demanding a no deal. Go and sign it instead of snarking at people.

Happyhillock: which just suggests to me that most Scottish 16-17 year olds were far more sensible than Alec Salmond given the evidence they were being presented with at the time!
But Scotland was well and truly sold a pup during that campaign, with the warnings that they’d lose their European status and sink if they voted for independence. Well that worked out well for them didn’t it?! I’m only part Scottish, never lived there, love the country and desperately want it to remain in the Union. But I wouldn’t blame former remain voters one little bit if they voted for independence in another referendum. Scotland’s wishes (along with NI’s, London and many of England’s cities) have been flagrantly ignored in this mess.

Ian not sure a no deal is the answer however the thought of signing a petition on behalf of children is equally ridiculous.

Ffs, it's a petition, not electoral fraud. Where do you draw the line? What if your kids came home with a petition to keep a local park or library open? Would you forbid them from signing because they're not 18 and might not be able to grasp the intricacies of austerity and budget planning on local councils? If they hadn't intended people of all ages to sign it, they would have specified it was for over 18s only. As it stands, the ONLY restriction is that you have to be a UK resident or British citizen.

www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2017/01/do-online-petitions-actually-work-numbers-reveal-truth

Using the content analysing tool BuzzSumo, I discovered the top ten most-shared campaigns from petition.parliament.uk within the last year. It seems logical that the most-shared petitions are those with the largest chance of success, and all reached the threshold to be debated by MPs (though four of the ten were actually denied a debate). Despite accumulating millions of signatures and hundreds of thousands of shares, however, not a single one of these campaigns succeeded in obtaining its intended outcome

Critics of online “Slacktivism” will be delighted by these results, which appear to demonstrate that sitting at home on your computer can’t really provoke social change.