There are a great many reasons why I would not make it as a lowly parliamentary under-secretary of state, let alone prime minister. But not being able to answer the question of why I won't hold a general election less than four months after a securing a landslide majority without barely concealed disdain for the presenter (and therefore the viewer) would be right up there.
Look, there's a rich history of parliamentary petitions in this country dating back to at least 1669. Indeed, mass petitions to the House of Commons played a significant role in various campaigns, from Chartism to the fight for women's suffrage. The practice exploded in the nineteenth century, with an average of 17,600 petitions presented between 1837 and 1841.
Fast forward to this century and petitions, which had rather fallen out of favour, have enjoyed something of a comeback. The coalition government of 2010-15 introduced new rules since when, if a petition receives 10,000 signatures, the government will respond, and if it gets 100,000, it will be considered for debate.
Thus far, and with an assist from US government contractor Elon Musk, a petition calling for a general election has garnered more than 2.6 million signatures. If you so wish, you can check out this interactive map of where the signatories live, or claim to live. Unsurprisingly, areas with the highest concentration of signatories tend to be Conservative and Liberal Democrat-held constituencies.
This is the point that Keir Starmer gamely made when answering a question from ITV This Morning's Cat Deeley, who I last encountered on SMTV Live in the late 1990s:
“Look, I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election. I’m not surprised that many of them want a re-run. That isn’t how our system works. There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in in the first place." Well, quite.
To be clear, this is not a partisan point. I feel a similar level of derision towards those who signed a 2019 petition calling for the revocation of article 50 and for the UK to remain in the EU, which received more than six million signatures. A Westminster Hall debate was duly held on the matter. Britain, of course, left the EU the following year. This was only bettered by those who appeared genuinely surprised and let down that the late Queen did not veto Boris Johnson's decision to prorogue parliament.
I worry I'm long past the point of sounding smug at best, scornful at worst. I don't believe that our job as citizens is to vote once every five years and leave the rest to politicians. Civic engagement is critical to a vibrant democracy. Please, write to your MP, volunteer on campaigns you believe in, even run for office.
But these sorts of petitions are performative. They give a frisson of doing something, without actually putting any pressure on a new government that really has broken, or at least bent, a number of pre-election promises. Whether you voted for them or not (and most people didn't), Labour has a stonking majority and the next general election will not come until 2028 at the earliest.
This article appears in our award-winning newsletter, West End Final – delivered 4pm daily – bringing you the very best of the paper, from culture and comment to features and sport. Sign up here.
