General Election petition debate date set as Starmer faces fury just months after entering No10
Sir John Curtice discusses how Nigel Farage may profit from the petition
GB News
A debate about a petition demanding another General Election will be held in January.
The Petitions Committee has announced that the call will be considered in the Westminster Hall on January 6.
The debate will be led by the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Jamie Stone.
The petition, which was created by pub owner Michael Westwood, has reached almost 2.8 million signatures.
Sir Keir Starmer has come under fire
Reuters
It reads: "I would like there to be another General Election. I believe the current Labour Government have gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election."
The petition gained traction after it was highlighted by controversial billionaire CEO Elon Musk and actor Michael Caine. At Prime Minister’s Questions Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called for Sir Keir Starmer to resign, pointing to a petition signed by more than 2.5 million people calling for a general election.
The PM hit back: "She talks about a petition, we had a massive petition on July 4 in this country. We spent years taking our party from a party of protest to a party of government, they are hurtling in the opposite direction."
Badenoch described the response as "nonsense"
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer walks outside 10 Downing Street
Reuters
Asked about the petition on ITV’s This Morning programme earlier this week, the Prime Minister said: "Look, I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election. I’m not surprised that many of them want a re-run. That isn’t how our system works.
"There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in in the first place. So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make every day."
Starmer characterised decisions taken so far by his Government as "tough but fair."
As he marks five months as Prime Minister, Starmer acknowledged the job has been difficult, but added: “I wouldn’t swap a single day in opposition for a day in power.
Starmer said his new Government has been given a “clear mandate” by voters.PAHe said: "It’s much better to be in power to do things, rather than the frustration, as I found it, in opposition for all of those long years where we were just able to say what we would do."
Some of the UK constituencies with the highest number of signatories appear to be Tory-held seats.
More than 7,595 people have signed it in Brentwood and Ongar where shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart is MP, while 6,945 have signed it in Tory chief whip Rebecca Harris’s Castle Point constituency.
Around 7,360 people have signed in Reform leader Nigel Farage's Clacton seat, with 5,352 signing in Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay's seat in Waveney Valley.
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