Article 50 petition: Government website crashes after more than 900,000 demand Brexit is cancelled

Call to scrap withdrawal process takes just hours to attract double the signatures of petition calling for no-deal

The government’s petition website crashed after three quarters of a million people urged the government to revoke Article 50 and remain in the European Union amid continuing Brexit turmoil.

The site experienced outages on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of people offered their support to the petition after Theresa May was forced to beg Brussels for a delay to Britain’s exit from the bloc.

“The government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is ‘the will of the people’,” the petition’s organiser Margaret Anne Georgiadou wrote.

“We need to put a stop to this claim by proving the strength of public support now for remaining in the EU. A People’s Vote may not happen – so vote now.”

By Thursday morning, the petition had garnered more than 900,000 signatures, eclipsing the 370,000 a petition launched in November calling for a no-deal Brexit has so far attracted.

Any petition of more than 100,000 signatures started on the official parliamentary website is automatically considered for a debate in the Commons.

The prime minister addressed the nation on Wednesday evening, insisting she is on the side of the public as the battle over Brexit in parliament descended into chaos, while refusing to offer compromises to opposition MPs.

With little over a week until Britain is due to exit the EU, Ms May asked Brussels for a delay until 30 June, a move she described as a “matter of deep personal regret”.

European Council president Donald Tusk has indicated the EU would be prepared to offer the prime minister a short extension, but only if her deal wins the backing of the Commons in a third meaningful vote next week.

Brussels remains open to a longer extension, although Ms May has hinted she will resign if MPs demand a significant delay to the withdrawal process.

Ms May will travel to Brussels on Thursday for a meeting of the European Council, where she will make the case to European leaders to give her more time to push her deal through parliament.