Over two million people have signed a petition on the UK Parliament’s website calling for a new general election over Labour Party’s alleged broken promises. Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, said he wasn’t surprised that some people who didn’t vote for Labour last time around wanted a re-run of the poll. Although the petition has 100,000 signatures and is likely to be debated in Parliament, it won’t trigger a new election.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson argued that he had “inherited a lot of problems” from the previous government and he decided to “take the hard decisions first.” The petitions were set up for citizens and UK residents to express their concerns and requests to the government or Parliament website. Those with over 10,000 signatures receive a government response, and petitions with over 100,000 signatures are considered for a parliamentary debate.
This petition calling for a new general election was promoted by Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, and Elon Musk, the tech billionaire. It was set up last week and has been gaining traction. It comes five months after Labour’s landslide victory in the July general election, which secured 9.7 million votes and 402 seats in the House of Commons. However, the party only received a 35% share of the vote, the lowest won by a single-party government since the end of the war.
Sir Keir Starmer said that many people did not vote in Labour during the last election and that he isn’t surprised that many of them want to run the elections again. However, he said that rerunning elections isn’t how the system works. He added that governing is difficult, but he wouldn’t swap a single day in opposition for a day in power. Starmer said that it is much better to be in power and make things happen
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