Revealed: Thousands of people outside Britain signed pro-LEAVE petitions

Brexit & Foreign Policy Left Foot Forward

Attempts to discredit the 'Revoke Article 50 petition' are pure hypocrisy.

Leavers thought they had ‘gottcha’ moment on Thursday.

Right-wing blog Guido Fawkes spotted that some of the signatures on the Revoke Article 50 petition – which has now had over 2.6 million signatures came from outside the UK:

The only problem is – all the pro-Brexit petitions have many signatories from outside the UK.

More than 23,000 signatures are from outside Great Britain or unaccounted for on the pro-Brexitpetition ‘Leave the EU without a deal in March 2019’, from dozens of countries. It secured a government response and a debate in Parliament.

The foreign signatures range from 7 from Russia, 8 from Saudi Arabia to figures like 592 signatures from Spain (I think they Spaniards probably do want us out after the hash we’ve made of Brexit…):

Over 2,000 signatures are from outside GB or unaccounted for a separate – again pro-Brexit – petition titled: ‘Leave the EU immediately’. That includes 345 in Spain, 299 in France, 124 in Thailand, and 101 each in Germany & Ireland…

Some right-wingers were even calling for bots to flood the e-petitions site with fake signatures on the Revoke Article 50 petition – in an attempt to then discredit it. As Guido Fawkes tried and failed to do:

It’s not clear that the far-right of 4Chan followed through with these calls. But the simple fact is, some Brits sign petitions from abroad. Some people use ‘Virtual Private Networks’ to protect their privacy online, skewing the country they appear to come from. And a few non-Brits probably do slip through – the government’s e-petition site is not perfect.

But attacks on the Revoke Article 50 petition are cheap – at least 1.3m people with IP addresses within Great Britain have signed it, as of early Friday. That’s a huge movement for reversing the disastrous direction the government are taking.

Josiah Mortimer is Editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter.

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17 Responses to “Revealed: Thousands of people outside Britain signed pro-LEAVE petitions”

  1. Frankie D.

    @nhsgp Except, as usual, you’re talking out of your arse.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47668946

  2. jackie smith

    Are you having a laugh. And thousands of people outside of the Uk have signed the Remain petition. On the remain petition there are votes from Lebanon, Latvia, Hong Kong, India and many more from outside of the UK. Do you really expect anyone to believe that the remain petition is safe from interference and the leave one is not. Such a biased and misleading remark, whoever you are take your biased opinion elsewhere . Any media site is open to abuse to the government should not be taking notice of any of these. The vote in 2016 where people got off their backsides and voted ligitimately is the one that counts, not some media/internet controlled rubbish

  3. Jayne

    Jackie you are absolutely right…..the 2016 referendum gave a clear majority for leave anyone who says not does not truly understand democracy. Do people really think Gina miller and her backers who delayed everything for 6 months did not have another agenda. In any event ..there is something far more serious here than brexit (I voted to leave) the future of democracy is being challenged by ordinary people who are being swept along by the establishment who have their own agenda and reasons for ignoring the democratic vote.

  4. Christine Bull

    There are some really silly people about believing this

  5. Marcin Piotrowski

    Forget the bots. Any foreigner can sign this without any check! I just did to see if it would work. email confirmation is required only. This petition is shared on migrant minorities fb groups as well for ‘information’ purposes as well.

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