The petition must now be considered for a parliamentary debate
A petition calling for the UK to rejoin the European Union as a full member “as soon as possible” hit 100,000 signatures earlier this week, meaning it now has to be considered for a parliamentary debate.
As of today, the petition has over 116,000 signatures.
The petition notes that “Brexit hasn’t brought any tangible benefit and there is no future prospect of any”.
It also adds “the UK has changed its mind and that this should be recognised”.
The government’s response to the petition on 19 November was that: “The Government was elected on a manifesto that made clear there will be no return to EU membership. However, we are determined to reset the UK-EU relationship, putting it on a more solid footing.”
On Tuesday, Alistair Campbell posted on X: “This just needs 5k signatures to get over the 100k needed for consideration for Parliamentary debate – anything which gets the facts about the disaster of Brexit has to be a good thing”.
A recent study conducted by Aston Business School suggests that UK goods exports are 30% lower than they would have been if we had not left the single market and customs union.
Even Nigel Farage, one the biggest advocates and key architects of Britain leaving the European Union, has admitted that Brexit has failed and said the UK has not benefitted economically from leaving the bloc.
Brexit regret among voters is also high. A recent YouGov poll shows that more than half of Brits (55%) believe the country was wrong to vote to leave the EU in 2016.
Parliament’s guidance on petitions states: “Petitions which reach 100,000 signatures are almost always debated.”
However it adds that Parliament may decided not to put a petition forward for debate if the issue has been debated recently or there’s a debate scheduled for the near future.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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