Brexit: Petition for second EU referendum so popular the government site's crashing

It cites the result as too close given the turnout

Christopher Hooton
Friday 24 June 2016 07:55 BST
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The 48% of voters who wished to Remain in the European Union are so mortified by the Leave result that a parliamentary petition calling for a second referendum is swelling in signatures.

‘We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based on a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum,’ the petition, filed pre-referendum, reads.

At the time of writing, the petition is difficult to access, presumably due to a surge of traffic. The count is at 55,000 right now and climbing at roughly a thousand signatures a minute.

All petitions to the site that receive over 100,000 signatures must be considered for debate in Parliament by law, as was the case with the cannabis legalisation one.

Update 9:04am: petition.parliament.uk completely inaccessible.

Update 11:54am: The 100,000 threshhold is passed, with 101,526 signees.

Update 5:12pm: 145,570 and climbing

*Live coverage of the EU referendum fallout and Prime Minister David Cameron's resignation*

Of course, a second referendum would almost certainly be rejected, as referenda are not the sort of thing you get a second crack at.

Britain voted to leave the European Union by a narrow margin yesterday, with a turnout of 72 per cent.

Leave won the referendum with 51.9 per cent (17,410,742 votes), while Remain finished on 48.1 per cent (16,141,241 votes).

David Cameron, who backed the Remain campaign, announced his resignation outside Downing Street this morning.

David Cameron tears up during resignation speech

He said that it was “not right” for him to be “the captain that steers the country” in a new direction.

With his voice breaking, he continued: “I Iove this country and will do everything I can to serve it,” but added “the will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered.”

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London (which overwhelmingly voted Remain), insisted there is "no need to panic" in light of the Brexit, but said that "we all have a responsibility to now seek to heal the divisions that have emerged throughout this campaign - and to focus on that which unites us, rather than that which divides us."

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