The UK government’s petition website crashed on Thursday morning as thousands of people attempted to sign a plea for article 50 to be removed.
The petition began gaining signatures on Wednesday evening after Theresa May was criticised MPs for not approving the Brexit deal. It gained almost 600,000 signatures and was growing at a rate of 1,500 a minute before the site crashed.
A House of Commons spokesperson said: “The petitions site is experiencing technical difficulties and we are working to get it running again urgently. It has been caused by a large and sustained load on the system.” The site was restored by 9.40am but collapsed again shortly afterwards.
“The petition calls on the government to revoke article 50 and keep Britain in the EU, continuing: “The government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is the will of the people. We need to put a stop to this claim by proving the strength of public support now for remaining in the EU. A people’s vote may not happen, so vote now.”
Tom Forth, the head of data at the Open Data Institute Leeds, said the distribution of signatures across the UK was uneven.
The best way to see where the “Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU” petition is being signed is on the @ODILeeds hexmap viewer. A clear pattern, extremely concentrated in just a few places, and a very strong correlation with places that voted Remain. https://t.co/Fg9ZjycUdG pic.twitter.com/VdpcXHcKlw
— Tom Forth (@thomasforth) March 20, 2019
Petitions on the Parliament website rarely lead to a change in the law.
Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty sets out how an EU country might voluntarily leave the union. Article 50 says: “Any member state may decide to withdraw from the union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.”
It specifies that the leaver should notify the European council of its intentions and negotiate a deal on its withdrawal, also they must establish legal grounds for a future relationship with the EU.
