More than 4,699 people in Penrith and Solway constituency have signed a petition calling for a general election saying Labour have ‘gone back’ on their promises made at the last election.
Labour won a historic landslide in July and gained the new Penrith and Solway seat as part of their election win with Penrith gaining its first ever Labour MP.
Michael Westwood is the individual behind the petition calling for “another general election” in protest of the Labour administration, saying that the government has “gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election”.
The petition on Parliament’s website calling for another election has now been signed by more than two million people, including 4,699 from the Penrith and Solway Constituency.
Labour’s Markus Campbell-Savours won the seat in July’s election with 19,986 votes – 40.6 per cent of the vote.
Less than five months after winning the general election on July 4, the Labour government has been the target of intense criticism for its post-election policies, including removing the Winter Fuel Payment and adding a new farmer inheritance tax.
The petition has been fuelled by support from Elon Musk, who tweeted “wow” in response to the petition breaking the 200k target in six hours.
Asked about the petition on ITV’s This Morning programme Today (Monday 25th November) Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “Look, I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election.
“I’m not surprised that many of them want a re-run. That isn’t how our system works.
“There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in in the first place.
“So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make every day.”
He characterised decisions taken so far by his Government as “tough but fair”.
Sir Keir and his ministers have faced a particularly strong backlash for limiting winter fuel payments to only the poorest pensioners.
Farmers have also protested over changes to inheritance tax which they claim could affect the future of their businesses.
As he marks five months as Prime Minister, Sir Keir acknowledged the job has been difficult, but added: “I wouldn’t swap a single day in opposition for a day in power.
“It’s much better to be in power to do things, rather than the frustration, as I found it, in opposition for all of those long years where we were just able to say what we would do.”
The petition calling for another general election is open for signatures until May 2025.
While the vast majority of those signing it are from the UK, the petition has also a large number of signatures from other countries.
More than 1,200 people from the US have added their name to it, with others signing from other countries including Nigeria China and Russia.
The UK parliament petition system means that Parliament considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate.
Although the petition has gained over 2million signatures it is still a few million short of some of the bigger petitions in recent years submitted to parliament.
In 2019 a petition calling on the government to revoke article 50 received 6,103,056 signatures in a few days.
The Government at the time responded on the 26th March 2019 to the petition saying
“This Government will not revoke Article 50. We will honour the result of the 2016 referendum and work with Parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European Union.”
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