A PETITION calling for the revocation of Article 50 has soared past the four million mark on the day tens of thousands of people head for
London for the People’s Vote march aimed at derailing
Brexit - although Brexiteers have continued to raise question marks about its authenticity.
Meanwhile bookmakers have slashed the odds of the petition hitting five million by midnight, as well as the chances of Article 50 being revoked by the end of the year. Some Remainers even shared their own postcodes to Twitter in an attempt to encourage people from around the world to add their names. Meanwhile one Brexiteer revealed, as an experiment, he had signed as Theresa May, using the postcode of Number 10 Downing Street.
The ‘Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU’ petition was launched on Wednesday night, regularly crashed the parliamentary website yesterday as it attracted 2,000 signatures a minute.
Yesterday, a breakdown of data showed 1.26million were from the
UK.
However, the House of Commons confirmed it had had to stop updating its public data as Government systems were not robust enough to withstand the huge numbers of visitors to the petition website.
A spokesman said it paused the publication of the data at some point the previous evening.
As of 10.20am today, just over 4,060,000 had put their names to the petition, including celebrities such as Hugh Grant, Annie Lennox and David Walliams, of whom 3,931,802 are residents of the UK, according to Parliament’s website.
Arch-Brexiteer and former UKIP leader Nigel Farage called for an enquiry because signatures from North Korea, Afghanistan and Papua New Guinea have found their way onto the campaign.
Express.co.uk successfully added the name ‘Mickey Mouse’ to the petition using a valid postcode and UK address obtained via an internet search in seconds.
One Twitter user said: “That online petition to revoke article 50? I’ve just SIGNED it as Theresa May. Now tell me it's a genuine, authentic instrument.
A post on the Guido Fawkes website, edited by ardent Brexiteer website, said: “Remainers and Leavers alike have been getting a little too excited about the Revoke Article 50 Petition.
“Yes, you can sign it as many times as you like with made up email addresses and whatever name and country you care to put in.
“Yes, there are videos online explaining in detail how to use bots to hijack Parliamentary petitions – exactly what happened with the second referendum petition immediately after the referendum.
“Is it actually going to stop Brexit? No, that will be MPs.”
William Hill cut the price of the petition reaching 5 million votes by midnight to 5/4, down f from 5/2.
Meanwhile it is 2/1 that Article 50 is revoked before the end of the year.
William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams said: "As of 9.20 this morning the Petition has hit 4 million and we believe it has a great chance of getting to 5 million today.
”Seeing the support we might just have to trim the price of Article 50 actually being revoked."