Signing a petition calling for a referendum re-run might seem rather futile after the Brexit vote was done and dusted. But it seems that the four million people who did just that and put pen to paper haven’t completely wasted their time after all. The petition, which said that the Government should hold a re-run if ‘the remain or leave vote is less than 60 per cent based on a turnout less than 75 per cent’, has jumped its first hurdle. Putting aside who decided that this precise percentage was the exact bar which needed to be reached, Parliament will now discuss the petition in Westminster Hall on September 5th. In a statement, the Petitions Committee had this to say:
‘The Petitions Committee has decided to schedule a House of Commons debate on this petition. The debate will take place on 5 September at 4.30pm in Westminster Hall.’
But given that the original referendum act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout, what’s the point of having a debate? The Petitions Committee said it was all about numbers:
‘The Committee has decided that the huge number of people signing this petition means that it should be debated by MPs’
Yes, the numbers might be significant. But what about the more than 17 million who backed Brexit in the actual referendum? To be fair to the Petitions Committee, they are at pains to show that the debate in Westminster Hall ‘does not have the power to change the law and won’t end with the House of Commons deciding whether or not to have a second referendum’. Which begs the question, what’s the point?
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