M. M. ALAM

LONDON: Following Britain’s decision to leave EU, over one million Pro-EU visitors signed an e-petition causing the House of Commons’ website to crash. The Parliamentary petition is meant to force the government to hold another referendum. Incidentally, only 100,000 signatures are needed to raise an issue in Parliament.

In a milieu where in  Thursday’s referendum only 51.9 % voters opted to exit EU, in the  e-petition (that was set up by William Oliver Heale) Her Majesty  Government has been requested to implement a rule that if the ‘remain or leave vote’ is less than 60%, based on a turnout less than 75%, there should be another referendum.

The parliamentary petitions system is overseen by the petitions committee, who consider whether petitions that receive more than 100,000 signatures should be raised in the House. The committee is due to sit again on Tuesday. Furthermore, it transpired that most of the e-petitioners were from the major cities of England.

Interestingly, over a hundred thousand petitioners have signed another petition asking the newly-elected Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to declare independence of the city from UK and join the EU!

European newspapers have opted to bid a mocking farewell to Britain. While France said goodbye to the Queen and Harry Potter, its elitist newspaper Libération sarcastically wished Good Luck to the UK. German media went on to declare that ‘Brefugees’ were welcome.

Similarly the EU founding members’ foreign ministers have  asked UK to quit the 27-country-block ASAP as the union need to move ahead and think about the future.  Jean-Marc Ayrault, French Foreign Minister, held that since there was financial & political urgency they could not afford a period of uncertainly.