By now you will be aware of the petition demanding another general election. Finally, an answer to what would happen if Maga had sex with the People’s Vote. I assume we don’t use the phrase “bastard offspring” any longer, but in this case I’ll be making an exception. To see the obnoxious essence of not one but two excruciating political movements hook up and push out a screaming signature-baby is not a pretty sight. I have immediately launched a petition to forcibly sterilise all political movements.
To recap, this is the petition started by a Shropshire publican after he’d Googled “how to change the prime minister” and it told him to start a petition. Not a great ad for Google’s search accuracy, let’s face it, but I guess we already knew that was ageing like an unsealed bag-in-box of Phillip Schofield wine. Anyway, the resultant petition has now garnered two and a half million digital signatures, probably many more by the time you read this, and been pushed by public figures ranging from Elon Musk to Michael Caine. Fine. The Jaws film where the shark genuinely follows the Brody family all the way to the Bahamas is no longer the stupidest thing Michael’s done.
We’ll come to the perfectly reasonable complaints about the way Keir Starmer’s government has been doing business shortly – and to the degree to which it has brought this on itself. But first, I think we do have to consider the unfortunate fact that the UK has once again caught the eye of the man soon to be found affixing stickers reading “Elon’s room – keep out!!!!!!!” on the door of the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House.
The Space X/Tesla/United States of America boss keeps pushing the petition on his X platform, with one word prompts like “Interesting” or “Wow”. I mean, not really? Big wows, more like. And it’s hard to believe Elon’s attempts to play dumbly impressed. He must know that in the UK and beyond, you can basically Petition McPetitionface any old poll thanks to platforms like his. But if he doesn’t, can someone trick Vice-President Moobs McMoobsface into agreeing that this campaign to re-run a vote we honestly had 10 minutes ago should be called “The People’s Vote”? I can see Elon gullibly liking the phrasing – even though it’s a title which has always implied that yeah, you do realise some alleged “people” already voted, but the result was something you didn’t like, so were they ever even people at all? Time for the actual humans to vote.
Regrettably, Musk hasn’t limited himself to wading into merely one aspect of British affairs, also opting to repost a picture of far-right Tommy Robinson self-swaddling in a prison-issue blanket, with Elon inquiring: “Why is he in prison for 18 months?” Oh. Normally I would respond to a particularly obtuse online inquiry with a cordial: “Do you have the internet? If so, you could Google it!” But given Elon owns part of the internet, there must be something that keeps him from carrying out this basic task – possibly a growing distrust of Google’s search accuracy.
In which case, happy to oblige. Robinson is in prison for contempt of court, because he wouldn’t stop repeating false claims about a refugee teenager. And it’s not even the first time he’s been in prison for contempt of court. He went before for trying to collapse a grooming trial, which would have put multiple female victims through the horror of having to testify twice. It’s almost as if he doesn’t give a toss about the women, repeatedly indulges in behaviour that in effect makes him their groomers’ and rapists’ friend, and does the entire thing for clicks – and the ready cash that follows. As a man who recently caught a space rocket with some chopsticks, Elon should surely be the person to grasp that the Robinson grift is not exactly rocket science.
Anyway, back to this petition. About 487 leaps down the food chain, Elon is ably supported by Richard Tice, the mid-90s knitwear catalogue model beta-ed out of the Reform leadership by Nigel Farage. Tice is another one that seems to have gone full crybaby about a vote result. Richard once called the People’s Vote campaign a “losers’ vote”, but is now pushing daily for the petition to become “the biggest petition ever” in the UK. Can he have it both ways? Can the QAnon shaman and Steve Bray make a spiritual baby? I wouldn’t have thought so, but the internet is once again refusing to be constrained by facts. As indeed is Richard.
However. Having said all that, what did Labour expect? We live in chaotic times where conventions and norms are disintegrating by the day. As many, many people said at the time, Labour not being straight with the electorate about money during the election campaign always threatened to go tits up sooner rather than later. Making silly obfuscations about “opening up the books” was warned against by everyone from the heights of the Institute for Fiscal Studies to the depths of this column. Promising revolution via trivial cuts to taxes or services was always putting Starmer’s would-be administration on a hiding to nothing. So here we all are. If populism is claiming there are simple answers to complex problems, then Labour’s manifesto at the recent general election was squarely populist. And if you don’t treat the people like adults, you can hardly complain when they go in for juvenile petitions.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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