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UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

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Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#31

Petitions for Brexit are completely pointless. We already know half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay, so unless that petition has more than 33 million signatures then it doesn't prove much does it. (FYI: I voted remain and think Brexit is completely dumb, but it doesn't change how pointless petitions are for subjects where it's well established what people's opinions are)

While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of the country voted in the referendum. Likewise, you could say: voting population of UK - 17.6m leave votes = people who didn't vote for Brexit Which is a huge majority and by that measure we shouldn't leave. I don't agree with that standpoint either, but both your…

More than half the people who cared enough to go and vote want to leave.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#32

One of the developers tweeted last night "...nowhere near crashing the site - you all need to try harder tomorrow" https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108518184301268995

How do you know that's one of the developers?

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#33

These petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover... While the huge number of signings o…

The Brexiteers had won when they successfully framed Brexit as "the will of the 17M". Remainers didn't counter-frame this with "50M didn't vote for Brexit". Therefor all the marches, petitions etc. are always/can be ignored in the context of "but the will of the 17M". "Don't Think of an Elephant!" is now such an old book, and still a lot of people haven't read it. Brexiteers have read it it seems.

Has any vote ever been won by a majority of the entire population, eligible to vote or not? If that’s the standard you’re after nothing would ever pass and no government would ever be formed. Seems an unreasonable bar to set, to me.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of the country voted in the referendum. Likewise, you could say: voting population of UK - 17.6m leave votes = people who didn't vote for Brexit Which is a huge majority and by that measure we shouldn't leave. I don't agree with that standpoint either, but both your…

> While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of the country voted in the referendum. Those that didn't vote either way, don't count, and shouldn't count. Percentages in elections are of active voters. Unless they were prevented from voting some way, their post-facto protests are meaningless. You can't have yo…

I agree. But the statement "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay" is still false.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#35

Hey, that's my tweet! At the time it went down, I was seeing 2k signups a minute and rising. I was just thinking how the load handling was impressive when poof it was down. Back now, though, which is also pretty good. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 UPDATE: It's down again. 502 bad gateway. I was seeing close to 3k signups a minute when it fell over this time. UPDATE 2: Seems to be back? Clearly unsta…

Still 502, can't get the page to load.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#36
post #7

will there be a "reinvoke article 50" after this?

When this stage of leaving is complete and discussion turns to the future relationship, I expect the EU will replace article 50 with something fit for purpose. Article 50 itself is very short and doesn’t explain any ifs and buts of the process. The courts had to interpret it a few times to determine things like how revocation works, how can extensions happen, etc.

To be honest I think it works pretty well. It's the UK government that's broken.

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#37

Petitions for Brexit are completely pointless. We already know half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay, so unless that petition has more than 33 million signatures then it doesn't prove much does it. (FYI: I voted remain and think Brexit is completely dumb, but it doesn't change how pointless petitions are for subjects where it's well established what people's opinions are)

"half the country wants to leave"

A slim majority of those who voted, several years ago, stirred up by masses of illegal propaganda, especially in the last days before the vote. Now after getting some idea of the reality, the tides look to have significantly changed. Current opinion polls are showing significant majority for remain.(61% in the last YouGov poll)

(Also, it was 17 not 33)

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#38
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of the country voted in the referendum. Likewise, you could say: voting population of UK - 17.6m leave votes = people who didn't vote for Brexit Which is a huge majority and by that measure we shouldn't leave. I don't agree with that standpoint either, but both your…

More than half the people who cared enough to go and vote want to leave.

*wanted

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#39

These petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover... While the huge number of signings o…

Wouldn't it be meaningless, anyway, unless you compare it to the number of people who are opposed to the petition?

Re: UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit

#40

These petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover... While the huge number of signings o…

The Brexiteers had won when they successfully framed Brexit as "the will of the 17M". Remainers didn't counter-frame this with "50M didn't vote for Brexit". Therefor all the marches, petitions etc. are always/can be ignored in the context of "but the will of the 17M". "Don't Think of an Elephant!" is now such an old book, and still a lot of people haven't read it. Brexiteers have read it it seems.

I have zero sympathy, or concern for the voices of those who chose not to exercise their right to vote.

The 50m (not that many - see Khol's reply) had their chance and blew it, and I say that as someone who voted remain and thinks this whole thing is a disaster, and leaving either with the May deal (bad) or the hard way (worse) would both be worse than staying. However, the people had their chance and they voted to leave. That's how democracy works. It's a serious business with real consequences.

If there is a new referendum it should be about the terms under which we will leave, and that's all. Yes the May deal is crap, but any deal we cut with the EU was going to be a horrible fudge. So much for 'cutting a deal with the EU will be the easiest in human history' because 'we hold all the cards'. I have nothing but sympathy for Theresa May. She's made mistakes, sure, but anyone else would have made their own mistakes.

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