What’s wrong with UK petitions
It’s a pity that petitions in the UK seem to be as much about first-mover advantage or “going viral” as about the wording or substance of the petition itself. There’s no other form of quality control involved — i.e. if you have a controversial issue, such as the UK government’s 28 August 2019 application to suspend parliament, there’s no process to filter or select the most appropriate petition on the subject — instead, all the attention goes to whichever petition makes the most noise.
This is not trivial, as the government replies to petitions signed by over 10,000 people, and petitions which reach 100,000 signatures are almost always debated in parliament.
In the case of the petition linked to below, the headline “Do not prorogue Parliament” is straight to the point, and a petition sticking close to this would have a chance of gathering the broadest support in the UK. After all, one of the Brexiteers’ claims or favourite tropes is that “Remainers don’t understand or respect democracy”. (It’s as if time had stopped on 23 June 2016 at the moment of an inadequately specified advisory referendum, with multiple indications of falsehoods and illegal or underhand conduct.)
So there should be (i) a proportion of Brexiteers who are consistent in “banging the drum for democracy” and would condemn the prorogation of parliament. They would be joined in this condemnation by (ii) those who support Remain in all cases. There is also (iii) those who voted Remain, but buy the “democracy stopped on 23 June 2016” argument and now believe that the UK must leave the EU, one way or another — these are unlikely to be natural supporters of prorogation, either. Amongst the rest of the population, some will be Brexit supporters (iv) suffering from cognitive dissonance or (v) simply sticking a finger up at “the establishment”, and prorogation is unlikely to bother these groups.
However, despite the broad headline, the petition goes on to say that “Parliament must not be prorogued or dissolved unless and until the Article 50 period has been sufficiently extended or the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU has been cancelled.” Those in groups (i) and (iii) above are unlikely to support the substance of the petition, even if they support the headline. So the level of opposition to prorogation is understated, for little or no benefit.
