Revoke Article 50 petition calling for Brexit to be cancelled hits 6 million signatures

Most popular petition ever submitted to parliamentary website reaches new high

The petition urging the government to revoke Article 50 and halt Brexit has attracted more than 6 million signatures.

Despite slowing in growth over recent days, the online petition is the most popular ever submitted to the parliamentary website.

Launched at the end of February, a huge spike in support came after Theresa May’s widely criticised speech blaming MPs for the failure of her deal in the Commons on 20 March.

At one point, nearly 2,000 people were signing up every minute, and its popularity caused the e-petitions website to crash several times.

The success of the petition means its demand for Article 50 to be revoked is to be debated by MPs at 4.30pm on 1 April, the House of Commons Petitions Committee has said.

Politicians will also debate a petition calling for a second EU referendum, which has received more than 160,000 signatures, and another – signed by more than 165,000 – demanding that parliament honour the referendum result.

A government minister will be required to respond to the petition during the debate, but there will be no vote on the action it demands.

Ms May has already dismissed the petition, with a government spokesperson saying that a failure to deliver Brexit would cause potentially irreparable damage to public trust.

The official response stated: “The government acknowledges the considerable number of people who have signed this petition. However, close to three-quarters of the electorate took part in the 2016 referendum, trusting that the result would be respected.”

Some cynics circulated conspiracy theories the petition had been hijacked by bots. Yet the official Commons petitions committee said that 96 per cent of the signatures were listed as from the UK.

It explained on Twitter that various tools were used to identify and block signatures from bots, disposable email addresses and other sources that showed signs of fraudulent activity.

A heat map of the record-breaking petition created by Unboxed shows the areas where it has greatest support. Strong backing comes from cities such as London, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge, mirroring the Remain-Leave split at the 2016 referendum.

The second most popular parliamentary e-petition was posted in 2016, demanding a second EU referendum if the Remain or Leave vote was less than 60 per cent. It gathered just over 4.15m signatures.

The third most popular in history was a petition to prevent Donald Trump from making a state visit to the UK, with nearly 1.9m signatures.