What we know about the viral petition calling for a general election

MPs will debate a petition calling for a new general election next year after it hit more than 2.8 million signatures.

The petition, which was launched on 20 November, has comfortably reached the 100,00 threshold for parliament to consider a debate on the topic – and it is now scheduled in Westminster Hall on 6 January 2025.

It will not spark a new general election, but the strength of feeling towards having one will be unwelcome for the government. Sir Keir Starmer has said of the petition: "That isn't how the country works."

Labour has endured a rocky start to their first few months in power, but just how representative of falling poll numbers can such an e-petition be?

What does the petition say?

Simply put, the petition demands a general election be called.

"I would like there to be another general election," the petition, penned by Michael Westwood, says. "I believe the current Labour government have gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election."

What has the creator of the petition said?

Westwood, who voted Conservative in July's general election, runs three pubs in the West Midlands, including "Britain's cheapest", the Waggon & Horses in Oldbury, where a pint costs £2.30.

He told the Daily Mail on Tuesday that he started the petition out of frustration with the Labour government and only expected to receive a few dozen signatures.

"I just thought they were being so negative all the time," he said. "They were putting the fear of God into people that everything was so bad. They had also gone back on their manifesto promises.

"I just typed into Google 'How to change the prime minister', and it came back with start a petition. So that's what I did.

"I'm not political at all but just very patriotic and I didn't like the way they were talking down the country."

Westwood added to the BBC: ”The people that are currently in charge of the country, in my opinion, lied to get there...

”To have my opinion and my thoughts put out there and to find out actually, quite a lot of people agree, I think it's fantastic. It just shows that you're not on your own."

How do government petitions work?

E-petitions can be started online by members of the public, and allow people to raise issues with government policy or demand change in an area the government is responsible for.

Any British citizen or UK resident can start an online petition. To sign a petition, you need a valid email address and postcode. Once you have signed, you will be sent an email and must click the link in the email to confirm your 'signature' and for your vote to count.

After 10,000 signatures, petitions get a response from the government. After 100,000 signatures, petitions are considered for debate in parliament.

However, petitions have no real powers to force parliament to take action.

Have 2.8 million people really signed it?

Ultimately, it's impossible to say. However, based on petition data, it is likely at least some of the signatures are not real - particularly given people appear to have signed it from places such as North Korea and the Antarctic.

To sign a government petition, you need a valid email address and a postcode – but there are no clear checks on this, meaning it is open to abuse.

The petition data at the bottom of the page breaks down the number of supposed signatures by county and UK constituency. But this isn't necessarily accurate.

For example, the petition data shows that nine people from the British Antarctic Territory have signed - and while around 30 people live at scientific research centres in the territory during the winter, it would seem quite a leap that the petition has found a strong foothold with almost a third of the population there.

That said, the data shows an overwhelming number of signatures appear to be from the UK - around 2.81 million of the 2.83 million total, as of 7am on 28 November.

If accurate, the petition data would indicate that a large number of signatures come from people in constituencies that elected a Conservative MP in July, although several Labour seats including Hexham, North Northumberland and Bishop Auckland have also seen thousands of people seemingly sign it.

What has Starmer said?

Starmer dismissed the petition, commenting: "That isn't how our system works."

He said: "There would be plenty of people who didn't want us in in the first place so what I focus on is the decisions that I have to make every day.

"If you make your mind up as I have done that we're going to do the difficult things first, I think it's inevitable that people do feel they are difficult decisions - I understand that."

Labour's Jess Philips also acknowledged that people are frustrated with the situation in the UK, and reiterated Starmer's oft-repeated line that difficult decisions are being made.

Speaking to LBC, Phillips said on Monday that people were "impatient for change" but acknowledged that some people wouldn't like some of the decisions the government were taking.

"It's early days – we've been in power for four months and nobody would want to see a petition like this... although we did just have a general election," she said. "But the reality is, after a year, two years, there is a huge amount of mess to clear up."

However, that line doesn't appear to be washing with voters – with both Starmer and Labour's approval rating falling markedly in the months following the general election.

Polling expert Sir John Curtice told Sky News: "We have never previously had a government starting with quite as low a share of the vote Labour got in July. It's also difficult to find a government that has slipped as much in the polls as this government has so quickly."

A recent survey from Ipsos Mori showed that two in five people say they feel worse off since Labour came into power – despite support for the Conservative Party remaining low.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch briefly mentioned the petition during PMQs on Wednesday when she urged the prime minister to resign.

She said: ”If [Starmer] wants to know what Conservatives would do, he should resign and find out... There's a petition out there, two million people, asking him to go.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he “had never seen anything” like the petition, while X owner Elon Musk tweeted about the petition this week, calling it “interesting”.

Should the government be worried?

Almost three million (unverified) signatures may be a relative drop in the ocean, but it is a headline-grabbing one.

Serious momentum calling for a general election this early into a prime minister's tenure would not be a good look, and truly unpopular leaders (see Liz Truss) have previously been ousted by their party for failing to secure public confidence.

That said, the petition is being pushed heavily by right-wing agitators and Tory voters who would be critical of Labour regardless of how their transition into power had gone. Musk continued his frequent criticism of the Starmer government by pushing the petition on his X platform, too. Michael Caine has also weighed in.

Given that the petition is critical of the government as a whole, rather than of Starmer himself, it's not quite a Truss-lettuce situation, but it's probably enough to dampen an already dreary time in Number 10.

How big is the petition?

In terms of numbers, the general election petition eclipses two other petitions on the government website classed as “waiting for debate”.

The other two are: a petition calling for the government to introduce 16 as the minimum age for children to have social media, which currently has 114,000 signatures; and one calling for Labour not to change inheritance tax relief for working farms.

However, previous high-profile petitions, including the site's most widely signed ever (the petition calling for the government to revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit, which ended up with six million votes, ultimately came to nothing).

At the time of the growing Brexit petition, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage suggested that the high number of signatures could be the work of bots - however, a number of cyber experts told the BBC this was unlikely.

Petitions like the Brexit one used email verification "meaning it is much harder and therefore much less likely bots are being employed", Lisa Forte, partner at the cyber-security firm Red-Goat, told the BBC at the time.