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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

#91

Post by frutiger »

misnome wrote: post #12
colinramsay wrote: post #5

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…

I think mostly everyone signing this knows this. But it’s not as though we’ve been listened to in any way. I like the summary of @bootstrapcool on Twitter: “God knows we've tried everything else.[...] A brief use of collective impotent fury and a tiny squeak into the black holes of our futures, but it's something.”

> But it’s not as though we’ve been listened to in any way.

I get the sentiment (as a pro-Euro Brit), but surely the original referendum counts as being listened to in some way?

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

#92

Post by megous »

coldtea wrote: post #29
colinramsay wrote: post #23

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…

> Those that didn't vote either way, don't count, and shouldn't count.

That's 3 years ago. There are ~3-4 mil. more young people that are now elligible for vote. Should they have no say?

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

#93

Post by vladimir-y »

jonplackett wrote: post #21

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)

> Brexit is completely dumb

Well not completely. It allows UK politicians to imitate useful activity around the Brexit.

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

#94

Post by simonh »

Khol wrote: post #68
simonh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

The 50m is a slightly misleading point (it includes everyone too young to vote, whatever their viewpoint) but there's a much stronger case to take into account the perspective of the 16m people who voted against this car crash. To declare that because a poorly defined proposition sold with untruth and misdirection won out in a vote means that we can't reflect on what is now known is absurd.

If every vote in which the outcome was swayed with misdirection and untruth was invalidated, we’d have to give up on democracy completely. Every view and opinion was expressed and the electorate had plenty of opportunity to make a decision. I certainly feel I had sufficient information to make an informed choice.

I take a longer view. Democracy is a serious business and the fact the referendum decided on a specific outcome matters. Parliament agreed to hold the referendum and agreed to honour it. In the long term interests of the integrity of our nation and system of government, we should face up to and follow through on those commitments.

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

#95

Post by slavoingilizov »

jon889 wrote: post #50
colinramsay wrote: post #5

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…

I don't really understand how Paris has real protests almost every weekend, yet we're leaving the EU and we've just had a few marches. Marches do nothing, they're preplanned to cause minimal disruption, just make the people in them feel like they're doing something so that it doesn't go further than that. The march on Saturday needs to at least move off the preplanned route and actually cause some inconvenience.

Historically, the citizens of the UK and former British Empire have never managed to pull off a revolution. I don't know if complacency is ingrained in the culture (plenty of evidence for the opposite), but the French started beheading kings when they were not happy. The UK still supports a figurehead monarch. No evidence of correlation or causation, but just saying.

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

#96

Post by BattyMilk »

nytesky wrote: post #45

I know much of UK wants to remain, and Brexit is a mess, with EU Japan-ification and inherent mismatch of fiscal policy with monetary policy b/c of sovereign states, maybe UK will ultimately come out ahead as economic free agent?

Maybe if you bet on Burnley to win the premier League next season you will win a fortune. All signs, experience and educated opinions, however point to this being a losing bet

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

#97

Post by ranko »

Zenst wrote: post #83
chrisseaton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not in the UK, indeed the largest voter turnout of any election/referendum in the UK was...the EU referendum. Making it the largest vote for a decision in the entire history of the UK. So best described currently as `interesting times`.

I keep hearing this claim, but I don't think it's true.

"The highest turnout recorded at a UK general election over the last 100 years was in 1950, 83.9%.", according to https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...

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

#98

Post by aasasd »

ariehkovler wrote: post #17

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…

Huh, 50 requests a second is a pretty meh number in my book.

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

#99

Post by dalbasal »

jon889 wrote: post #71
dalbasal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want french protest culture, IMO. There are some good things about it and specific protests can achieve good results, but it adds up to a very stasis oriented bureaucracy/policy ecosystem. It also gives populists a hand.

Yup I wouldn't want it every weekend. But the scale of Brexit is much bigger, its going to affect our country for decades. It just seems like there should be more protests rather than marches or at least civil disobedience

True, but I think the British (my brothers to the east and north) need to remember that Brexit was ultimately a popular movement. Parliamentary shenanigans played a role, and have been making a mockery of themselves since but...

Brexit was a popular vote, with neither party actually supporting it. The interest in Brexit also grew against the wishes of major parties, industries and most centres of power. A reason parliament can't manage it decently is because parliament was and is mostly against it, including May.

This is not like ip laws, where interested lobbies co-opt the parliamentary systems with as little popular involvement (or knowledge) as possible. This was/is an actual division of opinions among the people. It wasn't imposed from above.

I hope you guys stay in, or at least close but I think it needs to be done in a way that respects the other side too.

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

#100

Post by nutjob2 »

tomp wrote: post #54
colinramsay wrote: post #5

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 sheer stubbornness of Theresa May's position What do you mean? To me, it seems she's tried pretty much everything, but the parliament voted down most of the proposals... Edit: I have nothing but respect for her. She's literally the only person in the wide political spectrum in the UK that's willing to actually deal with this like a sensible adult, and she's been eating a ton of shit for it, barely complaining a…

She's tried everything except actual leadership. The reason her political career is over is that's she's an ineffective leader.

These sorts of situations are the very definition of what leadership is for. The fact it's nigh an impossible situation is partly due to the path she has chosen and her relative incompetence in her job.

You can feel for her and that's fine, but at the end of the day responsibility to get the job done falls to her and she has not delivered. There are no excuses.

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