Don't Kill Cash: TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND people back campaign in just eight days

However, more than five million adults, including those most vulnerable in our society, still rely on cash in the UK.

Public and politicians’ support for the petition comes from every part of the political spectrum.

Last week the RMT union leader Mick Lynch gave his backing to the GB News Don't Kill Cash petition, warning of the dangers ditching rail ticket offices could have across the country.

The general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers said: "It becomes more and more difficult for those on low budgets, for instance, who use cash as a means of controlling their weekly and monthly spend.

"Because if you take a fixed amount of money and budget to that it means you're in control, to some extent, of your life.

"And if you're just doing it on the card or some kind of tap method you can quickly run out of control of your life."

The 61-year-old, who spoke with GB News' Patrick Christys, also addressed new plans to close hundreds of ticket offices at train stations across the country.

The campaign has also drawn in support from politicians including Labour frontbencher Lucy Powell and Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely, who said he would speak to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The shadow secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, Lucy Powell, told GB News: “We do need to protect cash, I think it's an important issue to highlight."

She added: “Whether that's becoming cashless and everybody paying for things electronically, or whether that's people wanting more human interaction when it comes to dealing with problems and services and utilities, and public services and so on.

"You don't always want everything to be digital, but there are great opportunities with that for more efficiencies and productivity and better services.”

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Seely told GB News: “I actually met with one of the ATM companies a couple of weeks ago now to talk about about why they're now having to begin to charge on the Isle of Wight.

“I said ‘look, that's really bad’ and he said it's because we're not getting the appropriate rates off the banks.

“Yet again, you have these big firms, in this case the banks, that are shutting down branches all over the Isle of Wight and all over Britain and who's taking up the flack? It's the ATM machines to get cash out sometimes.

“But they're now having to charge because the banks aren't giving them a fair cut. But also more importantly, it's the postmasters and postmistresses that are struggling, because they're having to do the bank's job.”

GB News' Economics and Business Editor Liam Halligan explained that people "are sick and tired that they can't use cash anymore".

He said: "It costs businesses money to handle cash and if we're losing a lot less cash then that means there's more so-called surveillance capitalism where the banks can follow your patterns of expenditure, internet companies can follow your patterns of expenditure and of course that data can be sold to third party companies who are interested in marketing."

We are calling on the Government to introduce legislation committing to protect the status of cash as legal tender and as a widely accepted means of payment in the UK until at least 2050.