
UK Parliament petitions site crashes under traffic for petition to cancel Brexit - Jamie452
https://twitter.com/ariehkovler/status/1108655511858278400
======
colinramsay
These petitions are almost always met with a boilerplate response. There was a
recent one (which I can't find as the site's currently down) regarding Russian
interference in the last UK election, with the government response being along
the lines of "we don't know what you're talking about, move on". More on that
here:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/gover...](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/b2vmm0/government_response_to_the_petition_undertake_an/)

While the huge number of signings on this petition obviously does reflect
_something_, I'm not sure it's actually doing anything meaningful. Likewise
the upcoming march this weekend for a Peoples Vote:

[https://www.peoples-vote.uk/march](https://www.peoples-vote.uk/march)

These are now simply ignored. The sheer stubbornness of Theresa May's position
as evidenced by her statement last night means we're going to go to the wire
on something that's been worked on for years. People calling it a national
disgrace are absolutely correct.

I can only hope that the pressure exerted from various angles (petition,
march, sane MPs) will result in Parliament revoking Article 50, but I don't
see it happening. It would be too prudent for this parody of a political
system.

edit: the site's back now. Apparently it runs on Rails with DelayedJob doing
most of the grunt work in the background.

edit2: just found the most popular petition on there with over 4m votes and
absolutely nothing came of that:

[https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/131215](https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/131215)

~~~
jon889
I don't really understand how Paris has real protests almost every weekend,
yet we're leaving the EU and we've just had a few marches. Marches do nothing,
they're preplanned to cause minimal disruption, just make the people in them
feel like they're doing something so that it doesn't go further than that. The
march on Saturday needs to at least move off the preplanned route and actually
cause some inconvenience.

~~~
slavoingilizov
Historically, the citizens of the UK and former British Empire have never
managed to pull off a revolution. I don't know if complacency is ingrained in
the culture (plenty of evidence for the opposite), but the French started
beheading kings when they were not happy. The UK still supports a figurehead
monarch. No evidence of correlation or causation, but just saying.

~~~
arethuza
What about the English Civil war which ended up with Charles I being executed?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England)

Also the later, and peaceful, Glorious Revolution?

~~~
pjc50
I don't think either of those count as _popular_ revolutions; more the layer
below the monarchy deciding to switch out the monarch for a more compliant
one. Parliamentary, rather than popular, sovereignty. (This is partly why I'm
fed up with all this pretending that "will of the people" was a thing in
English politics - it wasn't until 2015. Different in Scotland with the Claim
of Right.)

~~~
arethuza
So what would count as a genuinely popular revolution? I'm always reminded of
Orwell's view:

 _' Cyclically, the Middle deposed the High, by enlisting the Low. Upon
assuming power, however, the Middle (the new High class) recast the Low into
their usual servitude. In the event, the classes perpetually repeat the cycle,
when the Middle class speaks to the Low class of "justice" and of "human
brotherhood" in aid of becoming the High class rulers.'_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oligarchical_Collectivism)

------
jonplackett
Petitions for Brexit are completely pointless.

We already know half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay, so
unless that petition has more than 33 million signatures then it doesn't prove
much does it.

(FYI: I voted remain and think Brexit is completely dumb, but it doesn't
change how pointless petitions are for subjects where it's well established
what people's opinions are)

~~~
colinramsay
While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can't definitively say
"half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not all of
the country voted in the referendum. Likewise, you could say:

voting population of UK - 17.6m leave votes = people who didn't vote for
Brexit

Which is a huge majority and by that measure we shouldn't leave. I don't agree
with that standpoint either, but both your viewpoint and that are
misrepresentations.

~~~
coldtea
> _While I think this petition will fall on deaf ears, you can 't definitively
> say "half the country wants to leave and half wants to stay", because not
> all of the country voted in the referendum._

Those that didn't vote either way, don't count, and shouldn't count.

Percentages in elections are of active voters.

Unless they were prevented from voting some way, their post-facto protests are
meaningless.

You can't have your cake (not give a toss about votes and not participate) and
eat it (still have your opinion matter on voted topics) too

~~~
megous
> Those that didn't vote either way, don't count, and shouldn't count.

That's 3 years ago. There are ~3-4 mil. more young people that are now
elligible for vote. Should they have no say?

~~~
coldtea
> _That 's 3 years ago. There are ~3-4 mil. more young people that are now
> elligible for vote. Should they have no say?_

They don't have a say in any other long-term-implementation matter which was
voted before they became eligible for vote, so why would this be an exception?

~~~
megous
You just can't say what the country wants. You may only say what it wanted 3
years ago.

------
douglasfshearer
One of the developers tweeted last night "...nowhere near crashing the site -
you all need to try harder tomorrow"

[https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108518184301268995](https://twitter.com/pixeltrix/status/1108518184301268995)

~~~
gpmcadam
How do you know that's one of the developers?

~~~
corobo
I thought the same thing - the company the person is CTO of builds the
petitions website if you click through the link in their bio and then into
their projects page

[https://unboxed.co/product-stories/petitions/](https://unboxed.co/product-
stories/petitions/)

e: This came out worded as if I was disproving, I'm agreeing with the
grandparent comment and showing my working

------
ariehkovler
Hey, that's my tweet!

At the time it went down, I was seeing 2k signups a minute and rising. I was
just thinking how the load handling was impressive when _poof_ it was down.

Back now, though, which is also pretty good.
[https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584)

UPDATE: It's down again. 502 bad gateway. I was seeing close to 3k signups a
minute when it fell over this time.

UPDATE 2: Seems to be back? Clearly unstable though with these load levels.

~~~
Jamie452
Your tweet had the best pictures, hope you don’t mind!

I noted 3,350 per minute about 20 minutes ago!

~~~
ariehkovler
Yup. Which probably explains why it just fell over again.

Also no worries for posting :)

------
franky47
I made a progress bar with React to compare it to the NoDeal petition, for
when the JSON endpoints come back up:

[https://brexit-petitions-count.now.sh/](https://brexit-petitions-
count.now.sh/)

~~~
nickcotter
Cool, hopefully this isn't adding to the load! Can we have a graph too please?

------
jlokier
This morning, the petition was getting about 60 signatures per second. I
extrapolated it would reach about 1.15 million by noon. The rate was quite
steady, and had accelerated gradually.

Then the site started crashing, and it slowed drastically (between 502 Bad
Gateway nginx errors :-), at one point one signature in several minutes.

Then it resumed, but only at 20/s, and intermittently.

Now it is clocking up again, but at about 30/s.

It's impossible to be sure, but with this abrupt change of rates, I think it
very likely the outage is continuing to affect many people trying to sign it,
and will have a significant effect on the total number of signatures that are
achieved.

------
mhw
"Well done everyone - the site crashed because calculating the trending count
became too much of a load on the database but we're back now at around 180k
per hour by my estimation."

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

------
johnnycab
_We already had a robust set of tools in our technology stack to help us
scale. Our primary tool is a combination of Amazon CloudFormation and Elastic
Compute Cloud (EC2) which we use to automatically deploy and scale instances
in response to demand. Backing these instances is a PostgreSQL RDS database
which acts as our primary data store. One other component in our stack is
Amazon ElastiCache, a key-value store configured with the open-source
Memcached engine, which caches generated fragments of HTML so we can speed up
page build times._

[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/)

Perhaps, a petition is required to employ a new Cloud Architect, as this is
not the first time the Petitions service has had to cope with extra traffic &
spew out 502 Bad Gateway error.

------
corobo
This will result in nothing more than a response of

"The Government’s policy is not to revoke Article 50. Instead, we continue to
work with Parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European
Union as planned"

I have signed, however. Prove me wrong, UK Govt

------
xhruso00
Damage has been done and all the EU institutions are on leave and won't come
back. Even if UK delays the leave it won't save them from damage that has been
done.

It's only the politicians now who are trying to save their reputation. Sadly,
they are willing to sacrifice country well-being to remain be seen as heroes.

Britain already has "special status"[1] that was given to it in before
referendum. No other country in EU has such a deal.

[1][https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-
referendum-35622105](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-
referendum-35622105)

------
rjmunro
They seem to have fixed it by removing the "popular petitions" section from
the home page.

I guess it's possible that there are no popular petitions in the last hour
because of the outage.

------
billpg
Link to petition:
[https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584)

Currently... "Petitions is down for maintenance. We know about it and we're
working on it. Please try again later."

------
huffmsa
The chance to "petition" was before the vote happened in 2016.

You've made your bed, time to sleep in it.

~~~
isostatic
The country has changed its mind, but those in power haven't, because May
(stubborn) and Corbyn (wants a hard brexit which he thinks will drive people
to his brand of economics) don't accept it.

~~~
huffmsa
Then have a vote about rejoining the EU after you crash out.

Real life isn't a video game. You don't get to replay from your last save if
you don't like the outcome.

------
nytesky
I know much of UK wants to remain, and Brexit is a mess, with EU Japan-
ification and inherent mismatch of fiscal policy with monetary policy b/c of
sovereign states, maybe UK will ultimately come out ahead as economic free
agent?

~~~
matthewmacleod
It is possible that, over a generation-scale timescale, there will be some
benefits to the UK's position. I don't think that anybody can reasonably argue
against that, simply because of the uncertainty of the distant future.

The problem with that: the EU/EFTA is a large economic and regulatory power,
with which the majority of UK international trade occurs (60% of imports and
48% of exports). This is basically a consequence of both geographic and
cultural proximity. The result is that UK regulatory and trade regimes will be
heavily influenced by actions of the EU/EFTA market in terms of regulation and
trade policy; the UK will need to remain closely aligned for the foreseeable
future. This means that being "outside" that market introduces obvious
inefficiencies and costs, with few indications of any economic benefits that
may emerge.

------
albertgoeswoof
The map view is quite interesting:

[https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=241584](https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=241584)

------
Jamie452
BBC Coverage: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
politics-47652071](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47652071)

------
buboard
will there be a "reinvoke article 50" after this?

~~~
gmueckl
Not easily. There is a court ruling that states that invoking Article 50
repeatedly can be seen as an illegal abuse of the rule to exert undue pressure
on the EU. So if Britain wants to do it all again, they need to clear that
bar.

~~~
stordoff
> There is a court ruling that states that invoking Article 50 repeatedly can
> be seen as an illegal abuse of the rule to exert undue pressure on the EU

Citation needed. I have read the primary ruling on this[1], and I don't recall
anything of the sort.

As the Court notes:

> Although, during the drafting of [Article 50 TEU], amendments had been
> proposed [...] to avoid the risk of abuse during the withdrawal procedure
> [...], those amendments were all rejected on the ground, expressly set out
> in the comments on the draft, that the voluntary and unilateral nature of
> the withdrawal decision should be ensured.

[1]
[http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...](http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=208636&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=1136027)

~~~
gmueckl
The situation is more convoluted. You are partially correct. The key sentence
is this:

" In the second place, the revocation of the notification of the intention to
withdraw must, first, be submitted in writing to the European Council and,
secondly, be unequivocal and unconditional, that is to say that the purpose of
that revocation is to confirm the EU membership of the Member State concerned
under terms that are unchanged as regards its status as a Member State, and
that revocation brings the withdrawal procedure to an end."

This means that any withdrawal from Atricle 50 can only be proper if this is
the true end of the procedure. Otherwise, it would not be "unconditional".

~~~
stordoff
This is not my reading at all. It brings _the_ withdrawal procedure to an end
- the procedure under Article 50 is terminated. It does not preclude starting
another. Indeed, it would be contradictory - the purpose of the notice is to
confirm membership is "under terms that are unchanged" \-- if the State loses
its right to invoke Article 50, the terms _have_ changed.

~~~
gmueckl
No, the reading is very clear to me: a withdrawal cannot be lawful if it is
made with the intent to continue exit negotiations. If negotiations were to
continue the proceedings have not ended.

A new invocation of Article 50 can only be made as the start a new and
completely independent process. Everything that has been negotiated and
decided so far would have to be ignored.

~~~
stordoff
> Everything that has been negotiated and decided so far would have to be
> ignored.

I'm not disagreeing. The current procedures are brought to close. IF new
proceedings were brought, the EU would be well within its rights to say no and
that anything it agreed to previously no long applies if the UK tried to rely
on anything negotiated previously. It does not, however, prevent those new,
independent proceedings starting at all.

~~~
gmueckl
The question is whether it is even possible to get to the initiation of new
proceedings from where we are now. I doubt it. Any restart in the near future
would imply that the preceding withdrawal was unlawful.

------
cal97g
let me know when they get to 17.4 million signatures.

------
laurent123456
It worked for me on the third attempt to submit, but I didn't get the
confirmation email, so probably that's down as well.

------
Simulacra
If I recall correctly, is not the invoking of Article 50 non-revocable?

~~~
nickcotter
It's perfectly revocable, until 11pm 29th March.

Opinion is divided as to whether it requires Parliament or if the Government
can do it without further ado.

~~~
Simulacra
So what happens on March 30th if it is not revoked? Nine days from now is
truly the point of no return?

~~~
isostatic
Then all treaties the UK is part of with the EU cease to apply

    
    
      The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry 
      into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the 
      notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement 
      with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
    

That includes things like the treaties that allow planes to fly between the UK
and EU, or the UK and the U.S (as the treaties covering that are between the
EU and US)

Even overflights of EU by UK will struggle - Chicago allows them, but will EU
air safety recognize the UK's CAA

There have been various platitudes about how neither side wants this to
happen, but not very clear how legally it will happen.

------
AndrewDucker
Just worked for me. It's clearly intermittent.

------
ReptileMan
Am I the only one that finds the ECJ decision that UK can unilaterally decide
to stay deeply wrong and offensive? This is absurd.

You announce to leave there should be no going back.

------
vectorEQ
lets base our decisions and policies on internet polls. it's 2019 yolo

~~~
corobo
Well that's how this whole thing started, minus the internet part..

~~~
richardknop
It was a proper referendum, not very comparable to easily game-able internet
poll.

~~~
corobo
Not easy to game at all aye
[https://i.imgsir.com/RZKw.png](https://i.imgsir.com/RZKw.png)

I get what you're saying but this poll is to say "Please look at this further"
not "Please instantly do this thing in the poll"

~~~
wahern
But haven't you Brits always been conflicted over the EU? I mean,
significantly more than other nations? Looking at the big picture as an
outsider (American), it's probably better that the UK leave the EU. The EU
will be stronger and more united.

Even if Brexit doesn't destroy the UK economy[1], politicians everywhere in
Europe (including the UK) would no longer be able to speak entirely in
hypotheticals, which otherwise make it easy to string along the electorate as
well as keep the electorate fickle. Brexit will finally realize the
counterfactual that previously anybody and everybody could fabricate from
whole cloth. Indeed, it'll also provide a much needed counterfactual in
American political discourse and possibly elsewhere.

OTOH, I really like the suggestion in a comment to one of CGP Grey's Brexit
videos: the UK and EU could simply ceremoniously reenact the Article 50
withdrawal notice and extension request every year on a new EU-wide holiday,
Brexit Day. It provides substantially the same political catharsis, but in
perpetuity. And it's perfectly consonant with English political culture more
generally--anachronisms that not only bridge time but reconcile conservative
and liberal political modalities.

Note: It's important that, at least theoretically, the ritual reenactment
preserves the real threat of Brexit. Like with a roller coaster, the appetite
for self-destruction cannot be sated without uncertainty.

[1] I mean, pro-Brexit activists were always dishonest and full of sh*t.
Here's a mea culpa where an activist admits as much, even while continuing to
lie to himself: [https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-brexiteers-forgot-
abo...](https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-brexiteers-forgot-about-the-
border-1.3831635) But, honestly, who knows what will happen post Brexit. Short
term dislocation for sure, but beyond that it's a fool's game to make hard
predictions.

------
_pmf_
It's a sign from above that you should respect the valid vote for "leave".

~~~
sbhn
Article 50 was triggered by an unelected prime minister

~~~
corobo
All prime ministers in the UK are unelected.

~~~
mnw21cam
To clarify, they are elected to be an MP. But which MP becomes PM is more a
power struggle than an election.

------
cal97g
Somebody let me know if they reach 17,400,000 signatures; because if they
don't it's completely irrelevant. Not that signatures can't be faked; which
seems much more likely.

