Just for the record

At the time of writing, Britain is in political chaos. The EU has, very reasonably, granted us a short extension to get our shit together and decide what we want to do about Brexit. May has blamed Parliament for this, but while a few right-wing tabloids are still clinging to demonising the EU, most polls show the Tories are seen as the primary guilty party. May's venal statement has been universally slammed, and rightly so; her condescending remark the next day that she was "expressing her frustration" hasn't won her any converts. All that's done is emphasise even more how little a grasp of reality and respect for due process May really has.

My preferred option has always been a unilateral revocation of Article 50. Unlike asking for more extensions, Britain can simply decide to stop this nonsense at a stroke (provided there's no prospect of re-invoking it in the foreseeable future), as ruled by the European Court of Justice. There's currently a poll running in support of this which is at 3.4 million signatures.

How seriously should we take this poll and the possibility of its success ? Well, we're very much in uncharted political waters right now. I never thought we'd even get close to entertaining a No Deal scenario. I never thought that May would have the audacity to blame Parliament for her own mistakes or that the Speaker would feel it necessary to remind MPs that they are none of them traitors. Predictions are a fool's game so I won't offer any. I will say I'm not optimistic though.

That said, some things both good and bad about the poll need to be said.

First, Andrea Leadsom :

Earlier Commons leader Andrea Leadsom dismissed the petition as not being on the same scale as the pro-Brexit vote in the 2016 referendum. "Should it reach 17.4 million respondents then I am sure there will be a very clear case for taking action," she told MPs. She added: "It's absolutely right that people do have the opportunity to put their views and that can then spark yet another Brexit debate."

Well, fair enough for saying that we have another opportunity to be heard. Nothing wrong there. Similarly even the mere possibility that the poll could cause change is cause for hope, albeit heavily tempered with realism and caution.

But the notion that it needs to reach 17.4 million in order to have any serious consequences should be preposterous and wrong on every level. The referendum was legally non-binding but MPs promised - and are still promising - to respect the result. It was therefore engendered with power an online poll can simply never match. Both polls may have legally identical force but a single casual remark by one MP cannot compete with the promises of the entire Cabinet.

The second issue is : are the numbers genuine ? Some kindly soul has plotted the signature numbers as a function of time :

To me, that looks weird. The early stages look fine : a slow rise as it gains virality, an overnight plateau when everyone was asleep... and then it gets a bit strange. First it becomes extremely linear, which it's been suggested was an artificial limit because of the maximum traffic the site could handle. But then it rose much more steeply before a second overnight plateau, before resuming at a similar rate the next day. Currently it's still rising rapidly, albeit in a bit of a wobble.

The BBC has consulted experts who believe it's unlikely this is due to bots. I am not entirely convinced by this : how difficult is it, really, to automatically create email addresses and find UK postcodes for the web form ? I do not understand why that would pose a formidable barrier; if someone can enlighten me, that'd be great. I can tell you from direct experience that there's nothing whatsoever stopping someone who has an email address and knows a potscode from voting. Perhaps some further checks are made later to remove fraudulent entries (I doubt it) but at the voting stage that's literally all there is to it.

I would love the poll to be genuine, and I can't believe it's due to Russian trolls as Nigel "Fuckface" Farage has claimed. All I'm saying is that the pattern of voting seems weird. While the petition grapher does offer other polls, it's difficult to compare because it includes time up to the present day, while most activity on polls is in the early phases (hence on a graph of long-dead polls the early stages are compressed, so you just see a steep rise and a long plateau). I'm not remotely qualified to say anything beyond, "this looks a bit odd to me, can anyone explain ?", mind you.

Third, people have asked why this is happening now. Well, this isn't the first poll about the issue. Far from it. Previous polls calling for a second referendum have amassed votes in the millions, while others calling for rescinding Article 50 have crossed the 100,000 mark. Now, however, it's do or die. Decision time has been kicked down the road once more, but just barely. If we don't have to actually make the decision itself right now, we do have to decide on the process with extreme urgency.


The poll isn't useless, and I would urge anyone who thinks we shouldn't leave to sign it and share it - for God's sake share it ! You have the absolute democratic right to change your mind, you do not have to let the result of a non-binding vote from three years ago determine your future. This is your vote. Yours. You do not have to go along with things just because everyone else is. You don't have to be bound by a result that you have the right to revoke; no democracy could function if it were so inflexible. That endless voting on the same issue would be unworkable does not make the opposite prospect - one vote for all eternity - any the less of a perversion of democracy. A balance must be struck.

I suspect that if any real change does occur, the poll will play only a minor role. More persuasive will be letters - actual letters, not just emails - to MPs and street protests. If you have the opportunity to protest, do so. The voices of the 48%, and especially those who have joined us, must be heard now more than ever. That we may not succeed in stopping Brexit does not excuse us from not trying.

Perhaps all we'll achieve is damage limitation - no matter. If history records this as a catastrophic failure of Parliament, then let it also show that we at least fought it to the end. But more optimistically, since Britain and America competed to see which country could screw themselves the hardest in 2016, let this be year we pulled out of the race to the bottom, dug deep within our collective soul, and found the courage to deal with the loss of face and slowly restored ourselves to some level of dignity. Far better and braver to face up to one's mistakes and admit them than ruthlessly pursing them for the sake of avoiding "embarrassment". If we led the world in a bizarre act of collective stupidity, let's show them that we can get ourselves out of it too. Then we can (eventually) get back to what we do best : mocking the Americans for having stupid politics.