Alex Sobel MP column: There is appetite for Article 50 to be revoked

A petition calling for the Prime Minister to revoke Article 50 has broken the internet.

Or at least it broke the petitions site temporarily last week.

Parliament’s petitions committee said that the rate of signatures was “the highest the site has ever had to deal with”.

At the time of writing, the petition has amassed over five million signatures and that number will surely continue to climb.

8 September 2017...... Alex Sobel MP for Otley. Picture Tony Johnson.

The petition hasn’t just crashed the petitions website, it’s also taken its toll on my email inbox.

Thank you to the hundreds who have contacted me to tell me they have signed — I promise you will receive a response soon, if you haven’t already!

But technical and administrative issues aside, the volume of signatories is significant, and should not be overlooked.

It’s not that the petition will lead to a debate or vote in the next few days.

And after all, a signature on a petition is largely symbolic, and cannot be equated with a vote in the ballot box.

But what it has done is highlight the public appetite for the revocation of Article 50, placing it firmly on the political agenda.

The European Court of Justice have already ruled that this would be possible without the consent of the 27 other member states, and many of my constituents have contacted me to lobby for just this.