Petition to revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit hits 5,000,000 signatures

A petition to cancel Brexit has been signed by 5,000,000 people in just five days.

The campaign to revoke article 50 is the most popular online protest in history with approximately 2,000 people signing a minute.

All parliamentary petitions require 100,000 signatures for them to be debated in the House of Commons – which the appeal reached in just hours this week.

However, Prime Minister Theresa May has said she ‘will not countenance’ cancelling Brexit as doing so would cause ‘potentially irreparable damage to public trust’.

Margaret Anne Georgiadou, who set up the petition, has found herself the target of death threats as it increased in popularity.

The former college lecturer wrote on Twitter: ‘Last night I had three telephoned death threats. Who wants Brexit so much that they are prepared to kill for it?’

The petition’s support was concentrated in London and constituencies around Cambridge, Brighton, Bristol, Oxford and Edinburgh, all of which voted remain in the 2016 referendum.

Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom previously stated that the petition was ineffective unless on the scale of the original vote almost three years ago.

‘Should it reach 17.4million, I am sure there will be a very clear case for taking action,’ she said.

Ms Georgiadou tweeted in response: ‘If loathesome Leadsom wants 17.4m she will have them. I would enjoy ramming that number down her necklaced throat. We have until August 20.’

Before the current record-breaking petition, the most popular parliamentary campaign was between May and November of 2016.

It called on the Government to implement a rule that said if the Remain or Leave vote was less than 60% based on a turnout of less than 75% there should be another referendum.

Leave won with 51.9% after 72.7% of the British population turned out to vote.

The petition was rejected after a debate in the House of Commons that stated the referendum had received ‘overwhelming support from Parliament’ who never set a threshold for a minimum turnout.