
UK Parliament petitions website down amid overwhelming brexit rejection - supermatt
The UK parliament petitions website is currently experiencing intermittent outages in response to the support of a petition to cancel Brexit, responding to many requests with &quot;502: Bad Gateway&quot;.<p>The petition is the largest of its kind to date, with over 600,000 signees in 24 hours.<p>Petition: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;petition.parliament.uk&#x2F;petitions&#x2F;241584
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stedaniels
Andrew White at the GDS[0] wrote about "Scaling the Petitions service
following the EU Referendum"[1] back in August 2016. I wonder if we'll have
another write up after this petition?

[0] [https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-
digit...](https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-
service)

[1] [https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/16/scaling-the-
petiti...](https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/16/scaling-the-petitions-
service-following-the-eu-referendum/)

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wnkrshm
While I don't want to be cynical, I fear that politicians who will actually
have the power to vote in the matter are going to say: This is an attack by
[Russia, EU, bots, project fear, etc.].

Just like they do for the Article 13 protests, it's all orchestrated by
Facebook, Google etc. What can you do when your own politicians are the
equivalent of 911-truthers?

~~~
matt4077
I believe the Article 13 protests have so far been a very good demonstration
of the mechanisms of democracy still working quite well.

Even though only a rather small minority of citizen has any interest in the
topic, they have been effective in putting it on the public agenda. They
organized (completely peaceful) protests. Journalists then covered those
protests, even though their publishers' economic interests are probably on the
other side.

The EU parliament, often decried as undemocratic, has taken a lot of interest.
Opinion is now split, often within parties and groups. It rejected an attempt
to hold the vote early and bypass the large protests scheduled for Saturday.

It's anyones' guess how this will end. While some of the statements, such as
claims that protest emails are fake "bots" are obviously uninformed, I am
similarly disappointed by the other side not recognizing some legitimate
interests of creators and maybe trying to advance constructive ideas.

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michaelcampbell
I've always felt these were just "rage honeypots" \- allow the slacktivism a
place to be vented to make people feel like they're doing something, with no
action required by anyone in power.

~~~
Traster
That might be true in general, but actually that won't always work. This is a
great indicator int he run up to the protests at the weekend. It's also a
great stick to beat the government with - so it makes news now, and it makes
new when the government inevitably has to reject it.

Edit: It is already being raised in parliament by opposition MPs
[https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1108708533019832323](https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1108708533019832323)

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duiker101
It's been returning 500 error for a while and then went into maintenance mode.
Seeing the amount of signatures that it was getting I personally will refrain
from calling foul play. I singed it yesterday and it was the first time I
signed one since I am usually skeptical anything comes from them (the
parliament already discussed the topic and you can see the recordings on the
same website) but what do I have to lose at this point? I can imagine a lot of
people feeling the same way.

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frobozz
Considering the response to this one:

[https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/223729](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/223729)

I suspect that the government are going to to ignore the current one.

The debate around 223729 made the very important point that in the case of
illegal campaigning in elections, the Electoral Commission can void the
result. The electorate would probably expect that the same would be true of a
referendum, but the only sanctions available are some paltry fines.

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mbaird
Straining to calculate trends at 180k an hour

[0]
[https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108673644660699136](https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108673644660699136)

~~~
PaulKeeble
It isn't very impressive scaling given what are relatively low numbers in the
internet age. We aren't really talking much more than 100 requests/posts a
second. I have old Rails sites that put through more than that on a 10-year-
old CPU.

I am wondering what the issue is, both in why it is failing on relatively low
traffic numbers and also why it is they are struggling to fix it for over 3
hours at this point.

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matthewmorgan
600k 'signatures' don't trump 17.4 million votes.

~~~
leighfuu
Aw mon ami. They don't need millions. They need 1,269,501.

17,410,742 for. 16,141,241 against. 750k and counting. Time is not on your
side amigo.

~~~
luiscleto
By that logic if every individual in the 16,141,241 signed the petition it
would suddenly make it 32,282,482 vs 17,410,742?

I'm not trying to downplay the significance of the petition or its size, but I
don't believe math works that way.

~~~
leighfuu
My argument is you don’t need to counter the original vote, only to make the
difference between the two votes. It’s the sway that matters more than
anything else.

Why there hasn’t been a counter pro-brexit petition yet I have no idea. Those
numbers would be higher purely on the zealotry.

~~~
luiscleto
1) Unless the people who sign the petition had not voted (or voted for brexit,
in which case you could even see it as a x2 effect) you can't "make the
difference" using these numbers as they doesn't necessarily show any sway.

2) Why would there need to be a pro-brexit petition if brexit won the vote?
That is unless cancelling brexit suddenly becomes the way that decision-makers
want to go for (and note that there are pro hard brexit petitions)

Disclaimer: I do not reside in the UK, and I no longer click on every article
in the ever-flowing torrent of brexit-related news, so my knowledge of the
ongoings may be outdated

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phelm
Petition to Leave the EU without a deal in March 2019.[1] Currently has
371,000 votes. Seems like its overwhelming Brexit opinion, rather than
overwhelming brexit rejection

[1]
[https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/229963](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/229963)

~~~
Jarmsy
After running for _5 months_. This revoke petition more than doubled that in
less than a single day.

~~~
OJFord
There have been several that passed the 100k threshold. The inverse petition
to the one posted here was debated in January:
[https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-01-14/debates/694...](https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2019-01-14/debates/694BA27D-566E-4F52-BC4B-8FC1ACA3F109/LeavingTheEU)

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jamessb
Here is a plot of the number of signatories over time:
[http://splasho.com/petitions/index.php?petition=241584](http://splasho.com/petitions/index.php?petition=241584)

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quickthrower2
I got 419: Not In Federation

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pepper_sauce
The current rate of signatures is approximately 500 per 10 seconds.

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kyranjamie
I'd love this to happen.

Sadly, though, this says more about the infrastructure of the petitions
website, than it does the will of the people.

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sillyguy123
Given how close the vote was and how chaotic the execution of the outcome has
been the site will likely revive a lot of traffic.

~~~
jamiegreen
Whilst it was close % wise, leave received over 1.3m more votes than
remain....

The second part of your statement though, is completely fair

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billpg
People like to talk about "17.4 million".

Seems a lot more impressive than "around half of voters".

~~~
ChrisRR
The remain vote was "around half of voters" too

~~~
louisswiss
I think that's the point.

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dev_north_east
Huh, I signed it about 10 minutes ago yet it's back down now. Must be a lot of
traffic!

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justtopost
Looks pro brexit to me.

Why the editorialized title?

~~~
666lumberjack
I can't see how "Revoke article 50 and remain in the EU" is pro-brexit
personally...

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robinduckett
Seems to be back up now

