An online petition asking for a second British referendum on whether to leave the European Union had collected 3.89 million signatures by Monday evening. But the petition submitted to Parliament didn’t go up recently, nor was it created by a supporter of the U.K.’s membership in the EU. Instead, the petition was created in November by a Brexit supporter, but interest has spiked since Thursday’s narrow victory for the “leave” camp. The losing side in the vote suddenly took renewed notice. Now, the petition, the largest ever submitted to Parliament’s website, has far more signatures than the 100,000 needed to require MPs to consider the demand. By comparison, another popular parliamentary petition to block U.S. presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump from entering the U.K. garnered about 586,000 signatures.
The petition asks for a second referendum “if the remain or leave vote is less than 60 percent based on a turnout less than 75 percent.” The “leave” camp won last week 52 percent to 48 percent with a turnout of 72 percent.
The petition was created in November by William Oliver Healey, a member of the far-right English Democrats party. At the time, polls showed the “remain” camp leading, and Healey created the petition as a way urge a do-over if “remain” won. Healy wrote Sunday on his Facebook profile that his petition had become “hijacked” by supporters of Britain’s continued EU membership.
Full Article: Brexit Regret: Will There Be A New Referendum Vote? Huge Online Petition For New Vote ‘Hijacked’ By ‘Remain’ Supporters.