Government Busting Petition Is STILL Kicking Starmer’s Backside!

Right, so it’s day 2 of PetitionGate if we can call it that, the petition set up to demand another General Election on the basis that Keir Starmer lied to the country based on what he said he would do, versus what he has actually done and where it soared past the 1 million signature mark yesterday, the anger in the country at this dishonest Tory tribute act of a government, it looks set to smash 2 million today, currently sitting on 1.9m signatures at time of writing. Why should this matter though? Starmer has already dismissed it apparently, he will not call a General Election, he has got a massive majority, he has got 5 years in power and what amounts to a heavily signed strongly worded letter isn’t going to budge him an inch.
What it is doing, perhaps unintentionally is elevating the far right and giving the likes of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK an opportunity to make gains, make some capital out of this. We on the left always said that Starmer, widely attributed as being left wing by the mainstream media despite being anything but, combined with the collapse of the Tories, would usher in an even worse, even more right wing government and even in this, he’s managing to do that.
Right, so this is no matter which way you look at it, hugely bad for Keir Starmer. Government petitions don’t generally gain a huge amount of traction, there’s a reason they don’t get debated unless they pass 100,000 signatures, so it is a significant issue and massively blaring neon sign of a warning to Starmer and Co, that a petition demanding they call another General Election because they lied to the public going into it, is hitting that target over and over again in a matter of hours.
For those of us on the left, we all knew Starmer was a liar, but he’s been so shielded by mainstream media from any kind of criticism ahead of the General Election, despite the purging of the left, all done under the excuse that they are all antisemites, the rampant parachuting in of candidates he and his faction like instead of letting locals choose their Labour representatives, all the promises, pledges, vows, missions, he’s ever announced he would do, he never has done. He has broken his word and gone with the political wind to suit himself and his own agenda, he lied to Labour members to get elected Labour leader and he lied to the country to become Prime Minister. Lying has got him everywhere he’s ever wanted, but once you reach the top, the only way from there is downwards and so an awful lot of former Labour members such as myself are not actually that surprised he’s coming undone, what has surprised a few of us, is exactly how fast that has happened and this petition is a demonstration of that, something tangible we can all get behind, can all help boost, because the bigger it gets the more it shames and embarrasses this government.
But shaming and embarrassing them, isn’t going to change anything, because at the end of the day, he needn’t act on it.
At 100,000 signatures, the petition must be debated, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to take up parliamentary time, it simply means a debate must be held at that’ll only end up therefore being a Westminster Hall debate. Now I’m sure people will have plenty to say there, but it won’t change a thing, nothing can come out of it that will force Starmer to call a General Election. He and his government are saying pain now better off later and they’ll stick to that line even as there is zero sign that’ll happen, the economy already tanking after Rachel Reeves’ idiotic budget, they’re doing all the same sort of stuff George Osborne tried, austerity, though don’t call it that this time because we’re Labour and really we are different even though we aren’t at all.
There’s a lot of anger at Labour over how they are ruining the country, worse even many think than the Tories were, and certainly continuing like this and especially under a leader as inherently dislikable and unpopular as Keir Starmer is, Labour look dead set to be a single term government.
Petitions have grown large before though and amounted to nothing.
In 2016 there was the EU Referendum Rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum petition which got over 4 million signatures, which said that if turnout was less than 75% and remain or leave got less than 60% of the vote another referendum should be held. That was ignored and I’m sure we all remember the Brexit vote result, which was delivered on a 72% turnout.
There was the 2019 Revoke Article 50 and Remain in the EU petition, which got over 6 million signatures.
Then there was the Prevent Donald Trump visiting the UK petition as well, objection to him making a state visit, which garnered 1.8m votes, now beaten by this petition, but I mention that one, because it was objected to by the very man currently capitalising like mad on the Starmer petition, Nigel Farage.
Farage was Mr Brexit, Mr opposition to a 2nd vote, Mr I love Donald Trump and now he’s all over this petition as well. He’s like petition syphilis, he’s all over them for good or bad and gets all the press attention as a result, and certainly the right wing mad hack rags are calling this a Farage petition, even though it was started not by him, but by a pub owner called Michael Westwood, who has admitted he voted Tory at the last election, yet this petition is all about Reform UK and actually there’s a good reason for that.
Now in my intro I said it was day 2 of PetitionGate, the petition gaining major traction yesterday as it did, but the petition was actually launched 5 days ago and by lunchtime yesterday had only got up to around half a million signatures. Now that’s not bad for a petition, but then the headlines and the news stories started, with the hard right comic masquerading as a newspaper called the Daily Express pushing a story about this petition titled ‘430,000 signatures as Reform ‘send Starmer a message’. It had nothing to do with Reform until the media made it about them and then it is Farage gurning all over the TV, Richard Tice and Rupert Lowe also Reform MPs signing it, other right wingers speaking out about signing it, like Sharron Davies, Nadine Dorries, that wretched headmistress woman Katherine Birbalsingh, and then the petition surged. Elon Musk shared it and so for as much as this petition is damaging for Starmer, the media are making sure it’s damaging for all of us, by putting Reform UK front a centre as the alternative to both Labour and the Tories when they would literally be even worse again.
As much as this damns Starmer and deservedly, I don’t disagree with the sentiment of it at all, he did lie, but he always lies and the warnings were there ahead of the election, but we also have to be consciously aware that it’s now also being weaponised for Reform UK’s gain.
That can be flipped about. They want this petition to be taken seriously, but those Brexit petitions did far better. Will this one make it that far and catch them up? I’d be surprised if it did, so if Farage and Co want to make a meal out of this, then really they should be asked for a 2nd Referendum on EU membership, because that’s how these things work right? You can’t have one rule for one petition and one for another.
There also seems to be a belief that this petition will actually trigger a General Election and this in no small part is due to various right wingers from Farage to Ben Habib going on the TV media and saying they believe it could trigger an election. They know it won’t, but by talking it up they get themselves airtime, draw attention to their own politics, their own party in relation to it, and that taints the whole thing really, but it also gives many people false hope that the election could be overturned somehow and that’s not something to ridicule as I’ve seen some content creators doing, that’s actually really serious, that people can be convinced that a democratic election can be overturned if enough people sign the equivalent of a strongly worded letter, that isn’t even strongly worded actually, it just states that:
‘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.’
Now where that might be ostensibly true and I defy anyone to disagree with it quite honestly, that isn’t a demand or order that the election be overturned, it’s a wish. Fundamentally it was started as a show of disdain and disgust for Starmer’s Labour which I can fully get behind and support, but that has been opportunistically seized by Reform UK and their supportive media for their own ends and to platform themselves and that is equally if not more toxic than even Starmer and his rancid government are. There can always be worse and with both establishment parties in Labour and the Tories now being damaged goods, the establishment now needs a third way and Reform UK is that on steroids. It won’t change the government, but if Reform get further boosts in the polls off the back of it, then that is job done for them.
Sign it by all means, embarrass Starmer with ever bigger numbers, it is at time of writing now about 16,000 signatures shy of 2 million, it’ll surge past that before this video goes out of that I’m certain but really that is all this petition will do. Don’t be fooled by Farage & Co over it, because really, they have had nothing to do with this and are just piggybacking off the back of it.
Where wishful thinking is one thing, holding Starmer to account and remembering what he’s doing and done come the next turn at the ballot box is quite another. Your vote carries far more weight than a signature on a petition and if you signed this but didn’t vote in July, well, you’ve got it somewhat backwards. Holding Starmer to account is more and more important, especially as he once again launches an assault on in work benefits and those claiming them, be they in work or not. Check out that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.