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UK Parliament petitions website down amid overwhelming brexit rejection

• dev_north_east 8y ago
  Huh, I signed it about 10 minutes ago yet it's back down now. Must be a lot of traffic!
• wnkrshm 8y ago
  While I don't want to be cynical, I fear that politicians who will actually have the power to vote in the matter are going to say: This is an attack by [Russia, EU, bots, project fear, etc.]. Just like they do for the Article 13 protests, it's all orchestrated by Facebook, Google etc. What can you do when your own politicians are the equivalent of 911-truthers?
  • Sir_Substance 8y ago
    They don't really need to do that. The last time I saw the UK parliment petition website being talked about, it was over the snoopers charter. The website said "Any petition that reaches 100k signatures will be debated in parliment", and the "repeal the snoopers charter" petition hit 100k within a day or two of opening and kept going up. The parliament responded by updating the wording on the website to say "any petition that hits 100k will be /considered/ for debate in parliament" and then released a statement saying "we've considered it, but we've already passed it so no". I've never heard of a petition on a topic of any substance on one of these petition websites achieving anything. It's a PR stunt, the British public should consider blockading the entrance to all british airports with those trucks that are going to be stuck at the border instead.
  • matt4077 8y ago
    I believe the Article 13 protests have so far been a very good demonstration of the mechanisms of democracy still working quite well. Even though only a rather small minority of citizen has any interest in the topic, they have been effective in putting it on the public agenda. They organized (completely peaceful) protests. Journalists then covered those protests, even though their publishers' economic interests are probably on the other side. The EU parliament, often decried as undemocratic, has taken a lot of interest. Opinion is now split, often within parties and groups. It rejected an attempt to hold the vote early and bypass the large protests scheduled for Saturday. It's anyones' guess how this will end. While some of the statements, such as claims that protest emails are fake "bots" are obviously uninformed, I am similarly disappointed by the other side not recognizing some legitimate interests of creators and maybe trying to advance constructive ideas.
• robinduckett 8y ago
  Seems to be back up now
• pepper_sauce 8y ago
  The current rate of signatures is approximately 500 per 10 seconds.
• matthewmorgan 8y ago
  600k 'signatures' don't trump 17.4 million votes.
  • leighfuu 8y ago
    Aw mon ami. They don't need millions. They need 1,269,501. 17,410,742 for. 16,141,241 against. 750k and counting. Time is not on your side amigo.
    • adtac 8y ago
      Wait, that's not how it works. How do you know that the people who voted aren't signing this as well? Everyone gets exactly one vote.
      • sago 8y ago
        I agree. I voted remain. And I signed the petition. GP's math is baffling!
    • luiscleto 8y ago
      By that logic if every individual in the 16,141,241 signed the petition it would suddenly make it 32,282,482 vs 17,410,742? I'm not trying to downplay the significance of the petition or its size, but I don't believe math works that way.
      • leighfuu 8y ago
        My argument is you don’t need to counter the original vote, only to make the difference between the two votes. It’s the sway that matters more than anything else. Why there hasn’t been a counter pro-brexit petition yet I have no idea. Those numbers would be higher purely on the zealotry.
        • luiscleto 8y ago
          1) Unless the people who sign the petition had not voted (or voted for brexit, in which case you could even see it as a x2 effect) you can't "make the difference" using these numbers as they doesn't necessarily show any sway. 2) Why would there need to be a pro-brexit petition if brexit won the vote? That is unless cancelling brexit suddenly becomes the way that decision-makers want to go for (and note that there are pro hard brexit petitions) Disclaimer: I do not reside in the UK, and I no longer click on every article in the ever-flowing torrent of brexit-related news, so my knowledge of the ongoings may be outdated
• duiker101 8y ago
  It's been returning 500 error for a while and then went into maintenance mode. Seeing the amount of signatures that it was getting I personally will refrain from calling foul play. I singed it yesterday and it was the first time I signed one since I am usually skeptical anything comes from them (the parliament already discussed the topic and you can see the recordings on the same website) but what do I have to lose at this point? I can imagine a lot of people feeling the same way.
• quickthrower2 8y ago
  I got 419: Not In Federation
• billpg 8y ago
  People like to talk about "17.4 million". Seems a lot more impressive than "around half of voters".
  • ChrisRR 8y ago
    The remain vote was "around half of voters" too
    • louisswiss 8y ago
      I think that's the point.
• phelm 8y ago
  Petition to Leave the EU without a deal in March 2019.[1] Currently has 371,000 votes. Seems like its overwhelming Brexit opinion, rather than overwhelming brexit rejection [1] https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/229963 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/229963
  • billpg 8y ago
    If you click "More details", the petition ends with "Rates fixed at time of the deal." "Let's leave with no deal. To do this, we'll need a deal." Do they want a deal or not?
  • Jarmsy 8y ago
    After running for 5 months. This revoke petition more than doubled that in less than a single day.
    • OJFord 8y ago
      There have been several that passed the 100k threshold. The inverse petition to the one posted here was debated in January: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-01-14/debates/694BA27D-566E-4F52-BC4B-8FC1ACA3F109/LeavingTheEU https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-01-14/debates/694...
• stedaniels 8y ago
  Andrew White at the GDS[0] wrote about "Scaling the Petitions service following the EU Referendum"[1] back in August 2016. I wonder if we'll have another write up after this petition? [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit... [1] https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/16/scaling-the-petitions-service-following-the-eu-referendum/ https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/16/scaling-the-petiti...
• michaelcampbell 8y ago
  I've always felt these were just "rage honeypots" - allow the slacktivism a place to be vented to make people feel like they're doing something, with no action required by anyone in power.
  • Traster 8y ago
    That might be true in general, but actually that won't always work. This is a great indicator int he run up to the protests at the weekend. It's also a great stick to beat the government with - so it makes news now, and it makes new when the government inevitably has to reject it. Edit: It is already being raised in parliament by opposition MPs https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1108708533019832323 https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1108708533019832323
  • OJFord 8y ago
    Yes, they exactly are. It's not a "petition to cancel Brexit" it's a "petition to consider debating the idea of cancelling Brexit". i.e. 1) it doesn't necessarily happen (and often doesn't) even if the threshold is passed; 2) if it is, it is _debated_ - that doesn't necessarily (and probably doesn't, at least as a direct result) mean that whatever the petitioners want is actioned. The inverse argument - various petitions with a theme of 'leave in March' - was debated in January, here's the transcript: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-01-14/debates/694BA27D-566E-4F52-BC4B-8FC1ACA3F109/LeavingTheEU https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-01-14/debates/694... Note it's a debate in a small committee room between people that the average (even politically interested) Briton has never heard of, minor backbenchers, it's certainly not a well-attended row in the Commons Chamber of the kind you see clipped on television. And why should it be? MPs are already debating Brexit options, there's no need to petition them to do so.
• kyranjamie 8y ago
  I'd love this to happen. Sadly, though, this says more about the infrastructure of the petitions website, than it does the will of the people.
• sillyguy123 8y ago
  Given how close the vote was and how chaotic the execution of the outcome has been the site will likely revive a lot of traffic.
  • jamiegreen 8y ago
    Whilst it was close % wise, leave received over 1.3m more votes than remain.... The second part of your statement though, is completely fair
• mbaird 8y ago
  Straining to calculate trends at 180k an hour [0] https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108673644660699136 https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108673644660699136
  • PaulKeeble 8y ago
    It isn't very impressive scaling given what are relatively low numbers in the internet age. We aren't really talking much more than 100 requests/posts a second. I have old Rails sites that put through more than that on a 10-year-old CPU. I am wondering what the issue is, both in why it is failing on relatively low traffic numbers and also why it is they are struggling to fix it for over 3 hours at this point.
• frobozz 8y ago
  Considering the response to this one: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/223729 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/223729 I suspect that the government are going to to ignore the current one. The debate around 223729 made the very important point that in the case of illegal campaigning in elections, the Electoral Commission can void the result. The electorate would probably expect that the same would be true of a referendum, but the only sanctions available are some paltry fines.
• justtopost 8y ago
  Looks pro brexit to me. Why the editorialized title?
  • 666lumberjack 8y ago
    I can't see how "Revoke article 50 and remain in the EU" is pro-brexit personally...
• jamessb 8y ago
  Here is a plot of the number of signatories over time: http://splasho.com/petitions/index.php?petition=241584 http://splasho.com/petitions/index.php?petition=241584