Tax-avoiding millionaires and newspaper owners are getting all excited about calls for another election. The same people who have said it’s too soon for another vote on Brexit, reports WALTER CRONXITE, political editor
Petition fury: except the national figures are not reflected in local constituencies
A petition raised by a publican in the West Midlands who describes himself as “patriotic, not political” (oh, how we laffed at that!) has attracted 2.5million signatures in just a few days.
But in Croydon, barely 2% of the electorate have bothered to sign the thing, official figures show.
The petition has been enthusiastically embraced by such devotees of democracy as Elon Musk, a newspaper owned by Lord Harmsworth (who pays less tax than you or I) and Nigel Farridge, the very bloke who for eight years has been saying it is too soon to have a second Brexit referendum.
When asked about the petition, Keir Starmer, the very unpopular Prime Minister who was elected in a General Election as recently as July 4, told a TV morning show yesterday, “That isn’t how the country works.” Which for a prepared response is remarkably lame, even by Starmer’s hobbling standards.
He said: “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.”
Troubled: Keir Starmer on the TV sofa, plunging even further in the popularity ratings
The petition was launched on November 20. Parliament has a threshold of 100,000 signatures for a Commons debate to be considered.
The petition states: “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.” Which sort of ignores 14 years of broken promises, by Tories and the LibDems.
There’s also a Trump-like undertone about the whole thing, as if claiming that, somehow, the election was “stolen”. Which, of course, it was not.
Publican Michael Westwood devised the petition. He voted Conservative in July. Westwood runs three pubs in the West Midlands, including “Britain’s cheapest”, the Waggon and Horses in Oldbury, where a pint costs £2.30.
Not interested: Croydon East’s figures by this morning
He told Lord Rothermere’s Daily Heil today, “I just thought they were being so negative all the time.
“They were putting the fear of God into people that everything was so bad. They had also gone back on their manifesto promises.
“I just typed into Google ‘How to change the prime minister?’, and it came back with start a petition. So that’s what I did.
“I’m not political at all but just very patriotic and I didn’t like the way they were talking down the country.” How sweet. And exhibiting complete, Philp-like amnesia over the Liz Truss episode, too.
Not interested: even Croydon South is lukewarm
As John Crace wrote in The Grauniad today, the petition is “the logical conclusion to the disposable society.
“Don’t like the result of the last general election? Then just have another one.
“Who cares if the new government has only been in office for four months? If you’re not feeling markedly better off already then the new Prime Minister is clearly a dud.
Not interested: Croydon West
“No matter that it actually might take years to turn around an economy that has been on its knees for more than a decade.
“Just never give Labour an even break.
“Keir Starmer is like a Premier League manager after a run of bad results. On borrowed time.”
Not interested: not many farmers in Streatham. Or Croydon North
Fifty years ago, back in 1974, a socialist Prime Minister did call a second General Election.
But that was because Harold Wilson sought to gain a more workable majority in the Commons for his Labour Government, after four years of Tory mis-rule and mismanagement in which Ted Heath lied to the electorate about holding a referendum before he would take the UK into what was then the EEC.
But with Labour in 2024 having 402 MPs, and a working majority over all other parties of 163, it’s going to take about 80 adverse by-election results before Starmer has to consider visiting the King at Buck House.
And besides, according to the constituency breakdowns on the parliamentary petition website, the people of Croydon simply can’t be arsed.
- In Croydon East, where Natasha Irons is the Labour MP, just 2,827 people have signed the petition calling for a General Election by this morning: 2.57% of the total electorate there.
- In Croydon South, the one constituency in this borough to have a Conservative MP, shadow home secretary Chris Philp, 3,365 people have signed the petition: 3.33% of the electorate.
- In Croydon West, Labour MP Sarah Jones’s new constituency, 1,429 people have signed the petition: 1.162% of the electorate.
- And in Streatham and Croydon North, where Steve Reed is the MP, 1,563 have signed the petition: 1.31% of the electorate. There’s probably not many farmers in Streatham and Croydon North…
In total, for four Croydon constituencies (and a bit of Lambeth), that’s 9,184 signatories to the petition.
Or
2%
of the electorate.
Bet you won’t see that reported in Allison Pearson’s Torygraph.
Read more: Minister Reed attended unminuted meetings with water bosses
Read more: Philp gets a Tory top job to provide a never-ending punchline
Read more: ‘I don’t think it’s helpful you ask questions like this’ squirms MP Reed
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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