Britain's May faces mammoth task to change minds on Brexit

I’ll be celebrating on the 29th as the UK Prime Minister repeated again and again that the 29th would be the day of Brexit and I believe that was a meaningful statement! (maybe not)

The public is sick and tired of this. The EU is sick and tired of this. Everybody's sick and tired of this.

Just let us leave for goodness' sake.

The public is sick and tired of this. The EU is sick and tired of this. Everybody's sick and tired of this.

I agree. Even the BBC newscasters sigh as they read yet more Brexit 'news'.

Just let us leave for goodness' sake.

Or better idea, just drop it.

Petition to revoke Article 50 tips 3.5 million signatures

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/22/petition-to-revoke-article-50-hits-3-million-signatures

I saw a meme the other day.

You know when your mate is drunk and says let’s go to this pub so you leave but then your mate can’t find the pub and the original pub won’t let you back in and you’re arguing about it in the chip shop at 2am?

Thats Brexit.

@cleo

Or better idea, just drop it.

Petition to revoke Article 50 tips 3.5 million signatures

Interestingly, many of those opposed to leaving the EU have talked about possible foreign intervention in the EU referendum for months, even though investigations prove that no foreign actors had any impact on the vote. However, now the shoe is the other foot, they've all gone silent. A lot signatures on that petition from outside of the UK.

But I believe you'll get what you want, cleo. You have the backing of mainstream media (BBC, Sky News, Channel 4, Guardian, even the Daily Mail was bought out by a remainer 3 months ago and is publishing anti-Brexit articles on a daily basis!). You also have the backing of the political establishment, a whole host of celebrities and the EU.

We are never going to be allowed to leave.

In all likelihood May meaningful vote will fail to gain the support necessary to negotiate a passage through the commons.

The petition politicly is an irrelevance. Article 50 cannot be revoked without a second referendum,

A second referendum that proposes a binary choice pitting May's deal and remain will be subject to host of legal challenges, potentially festering on for years

However the real political litmus test will manifest between MP's who choose principle over pragmatism The question posed at the ballot box will be crucial to the outcome.

The 23rd June 2016 referendum offered a simple option between the status quo and change, in or out ,should the UK remain in the EU, or leave.

A three options proposal, offering three choices, the resultant decision applied by a single transferable vote, a system presented to Parliament for 2011 referendum on changing how MPs are elected rejected the whole principle of an alternative vote by some 78% .

Any arrangement that proposed May's deal and remain could be construed as a repudiation of the 2016 referendum result. The resultant political toxicity to the voting electorate would have disastrous consequences.

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have both on numinous occasions pledged and promised to respect the 2016 referendum result.

Why did David Cameron resign as PM? Because the British electorate made a mistake?

Why did David Cameron resign as PM? Because the British electorate made a mistake?

Cameron, a Europhile, offered a referendum in a desperate and selfish bid to stop his MPs defecting to UKIP and to stop Eurosceptic Tory voters voting UKIP. He then campaigned for remain and saw a majority of the UK public vote out. His credibility was shot and he left the country in chaos.

He will be remembered, with May, as one of the worst postwar Prime Ministers.

Sign the petition to revoke article 50:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584

Interestingly, many of those opposed to leaving the EU have talked about possible foreign intervention in the EU referendum for months, even though investigations prove that no foreign actors had any impact on the vote. However, now the shoe is the other foot, they've all gone silent. A lot signatures on that petition from outside of the UK.

How much is "a lot" in your view?

Plenty of Brits live overseas anyway.

I'm not "silent", and happy to discuss.

* *A lot signatures on that petition from outside of the UK.

Tweet from Parliament's petitions committee : “A few people have been talking about fraud and overseas signatures. As of this afternoon, approximately 96% of signatures on the petition were from the UK. That’s broadly what we’d expect for a petition like this.”

“People have been asking about who can sign petitions. Anyone who is a UK resident or a British citizen can sign a petition. This includes British citizens living overseas.”

Just 4% of signatories are from outside the UK with the majority coming from countries with large British expat populations like France, Spain, Germany and the US.

The petition is now just a whisker short of 4 million.

Meanwhile, a new petition from Brexiteers in support of a no-deal Brexit had managed just 400,000 people by early Saturday morning.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/brexit-petition-to-hit-4-million-signatures-on-government-website-1-5954637

@Ah_so

Yes, thousands of Brits do live overseas, but when you have tens of thousands of signatures from Luxembourg which only has a population of just under 600,000 (British community is 5,900), you know it's dodgy.

https://order-order.com/2019/03/21/foreign-actors-hijack-article-50-petition-fake-signatures/

In fact, some people have been boasting about creating computer scripts to automatically resign the petition. One guy is claiming that he managed 33,000 signatures. Some have tested this out, and yes, you can sign the petition multiple times providing you change the email address.

Some have tested this out, and yes, you can sign the petition multiple times providing you change the email address.

I will give some credit for this - I refreshed the count at one point and it actually dropped briefly suggesting that the technology employed is stripping out any dodgy signatures.

Yes you can sign multiple times if you have multiple email addresses and keeping using different names and addresses and then go to your email to verify your signature, but this seems very drawn out.

Who is this guy who signed it 33000 times? It seems odd to prepare a script to to do this and then discredit both your own votes and the whole petition. Please provide your evidence.

You mention tens of thousands from Luxembourg- again can you point the readership to the data? I’ve been on the website and can’t find it

The petition is now just a whisker short of 4 million.

Now over, but 4m signed the petition for a second referendum, and that did not help.

tens of thousands of signatures from Luxembourg which only has a population of just under 600,000 (British community is 5,900

I've just read the relevant data on the petition site. Currently 1196 residents of Luxembourg have signed it, equivalent to only 20% of the resident British population.

I question your data source. Sounds like you are repeating someone else's propaganda ("propaganda" being the polite word).

Shockingly less than a thousand in Japan have signed it.

The UK Government and Parliament Petitions registrar is a valued and useful formal method for the electorate to express opinion.

To bot and troll this portal as a clandestine way to foster discontent and exploit resentment is childishly petulant and frankly treacherous.

If the public want to express there wish to remain or leave then I suggest they formally put pen to paper or e mail there MP.

A ever growing number of Parliamentarians deserved to be placed in the Stocks/Pillory, it is time to go medieval

Some have tested this out, and yes, you can sign the petition multiple times providing you change the email address.

You need to click on a link they send to your email address to be able to sign. So 'one guy' has 33,000 separate email addresses?

Your 'Guido Fawkes' link, by the way, makes claims with nothing at all to back it up.

you have tens of thousands of signatures from Luxembourg

The petition site states 1196 signatures from Luxembourg.

https://www.channel4.com/news/brexit-campaigner-i-signed-petition-three-times-with-the-names-tusk-juncker-and-barnier

https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=241584&area=uk

https://www.channel4.com/news/brexit-campaigner-i-signed-petition-three-times-with-the-names-tusk-juncker-and-barnier

Brexit campaigner: ‘I signed petition three times – with the names Tusk, Juncker and Barnier’

3 votes? So what? And signed by a Brexiteer seeking to undermine it. And there is software that monitors fake signatures and removes them.

https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=241584&area=uk

The support is from all over the UK.

It is a crying shame, there is oodles of data on petitionmap if only a more robust criteria had been adopted to authenticate signatures.

@Ah_so

The support is from all over the UK.

My intention was to show that the support for the petition seems to be mostly concentrated in small pockets around the UK. I wasn't trying to display the signatures from outside the UK.

I must also apologise as it seems the claim of 33,000 signatures is a misquote. A 4chan user claimed to have made 33,000 signatures on the UK Government petition site in 2016 calling for a second referendum. Here is the BBC news article:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36640459

As you can see from the article, they managed to obtain 3.6 million signatures, but as it says:

Thousands of signatures from countries such as North Korea and the South Sandwich Islands have been removed, and a majority of the signatures now appear to come from the UK.

But many could have been added by automated programs called bots and the petition continues to gather hundreds of signatures a minute.

It also mentions:

The government's petitions website does not appear to have a system in place to detect bots - such as a "captcha" picture that asks a user to recognise letters and numbers in an image, a task which is more difficult to automate.

"It seems like a huge oversight for a website designed to be used by so many people to lack simple protection," said Mr Ferguson.

So, while I have no doubt there are millions of people in and out of the UK that want to reverse Brexit, the petition is worthless. That is why I posted a link of the video with the Brexiteer who said he had signed three times. The petition can be exploited so easily.

To be fair Tangerine2000, metric based validation tools are sit down costly. The validation specifications data test for National Audit Office benchmarking. The budget requires seriously deep pockets.

Having said that, £500,000 to say £800,000 could produce an more robust indicative on-line intention model for a second referendum.

https://order-order.com/2019/03/21/foreign-actors-hijack-article-50-petition-fake-signatures/

Guido Fawkes. You must be joking - a far-right, libertarian chancer formerly in the pay of Rupert Murdoch.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Paul_Staines

Why is it that so many of these Brexiteer names that keep cropping up are dodgy, shady types with links to far-right American billionaires, dubious Saudi Princes, sketchy think-tanks funded by Robert Mercer or Charles Koch and lots of Russians?

Looks like Brexit is going to be cancelled. So now what. Back to the EU ? Will the UK be even accepted with open arms and step back into its former role ?

Will the UK be even accepted with open arms and step back into its former role ?

What role was that? Being a pain in the arse?