There is a rich history to petitioning parliament. The rights of petitioners and the power of the House to deal with petitions dates back to the 17th century. Initially, the Commons placed few restrictions on debates relating to public petitions, which were used as a method to bring in subjects from the outside. Indeed, mass petitions played a major role in various campaigns, including that for women’s suffrage.
In more modern times, petitions have become a part of our national conversation. If an official petition on the parliament website gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond, and if it receives 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for a debate. There is, however, no official figure for how many signatures are required to force an early general election. Britain’s political system does not quite work that way.
Sir Keir Starmer has no doubt had an uneven start to life in Number 10. Campaign promises have been broken, if not by the letter than in spirit, most famously around tax. Yet this government is hardly unique in that regard, and it certainly does not mean a general election is in order. We had one in July, and Labour won in a landslide. Given the vagaries of first-past-the-post, it did so on little more than a third of the vote. But those are the rules of the game.
The Prime Minister recognises that reality. Displaying admirable calm in the face of ludicrous questioning, Starmer said: “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.”
This is not a partisan point. While 2.5 million people have signed this petition, a petition in 2019 calling for the revocation of article 50 and for the UK to remain in the EU garnered more than 6 million signatures. A debate was held in Parliament on the matter. Britain, of course, left the EU the following year.
The good news for petitioners is that British democracy will endure, and voters will have ample opportunity to give their views at local elections and, ultimately, judge Labour on its record come 2028 or 2029.
