Should these e-petitions on the Downing Street website, now be discontinued?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....migration-debate.html

I wonder if this will be ignored in the same way that the request for a referendum on Europe was?

[murraymints]

probably not as this is quite high profile ...

[Old_Geezer]

The e-petitions are there to highlight an issue, and can still perform that function; but it has been proven they have no real sway against a three line whip. Any petition can be ignored, and will be if inconvenient.

[ichkeria]

"A petition calling for drastic action to prevent the UK's population soaring to 70 million was yesterday backed by 1,000 people"

I am all in favour of debates being held in Parliament on issues dear to people's hearts (including EU membership) , but I do wonder what sort of debate will ensue from this. Not a very constructive one I suspect. How on earth would you achieve that? Why 70 million? And is 70 million ok if its "indigenous" Brits but not if it's pesky immigrants?
Who thinks these things up? Can anyone suggest anything?

[ludwig]

The petitions are there to give them ideas. They're not under any obligation to take any notice of them.

[emmie]

no, but i doubt if they will have any impact, but one can hope.

[Zeuhl]

24,000 signatures is still only 0.04% of the population.

How influential should that be anyway?

Several million of us got off our @rses and marched in the streets to prevent the attack on Iraq and that was ignored.

[modeller]

zeuhl
//24,000 signatures is still only 0.04% of the population.//

I think you will find it is 100,000.

I think e-petitions are good as it ensures it will be debated. Had they not existed it wouldn't even have got a mention in Westminster, as it is there are are now two groups of MPs that are going to examine the whole question of us getting back some of our powers. And those groups will be able to challenge parliament on any issues important to the electorate.

[Zeuhl]

em it was 24K last time i looked - I suppose it is rising as we speak.

True - they do bring matters to the attention of parliament and the media. Just seems that relatively small percentages of the populous can engineer perhaps undue attention.

But hey! nothing new there!

[emmie]

zeuhl, i didn't say a word, in case you hadn't noticed.

[237SJ]

They`ll take about as much notice as they did for the petition against the increase in air passenger duty - none! I received the anti-immigration email from a friend who sent it as a circular to everyone in his address book (strongly urging us to sign it). He married a Pole who went through a marriage of convenience to get to the UK many years ago. That hypocrisy was enough for me to hit the `delete` button.

[Zeuhl]

em - apologies it was modeller wasn't it?

but as it was such a reasonable and intelligent comment I just assumed it was you.

(is that grovelling good enough? :-)

[emmie]

zeuhl, that will do, but yes was modeller. I must admit i would sign it, if i could work out how it's done..

[Brenden]

em, go to google, put in e petition migration debate, scroll down to link - go from there.

[modeller]

em go to this site and you can vote on many petitions, whch the government are now obliged to debate if 100,000 or more are received.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

I have voted on several of them including the one on the referendum.

If you type ' petitions ' in the search box above you will find quite a bit of info. from ABers.

[rojash]

I wonder what would happen if someone started an e-petition that all e-petitions should be ignored, and it got sufficient votes.
Would it be like travelling back in time and killing your grandfather?

[rov1100]

They'd better hurry up! With nearly 10 million immigrants already in the country, mostly adults, they are hardly likely to oppose it if a poll was taken after the debate and the English are so docile most of them wouldn't oppose anything until its too late.

[ichkeria]

If there was a referendum tomoroow that said:
"Should we stop the population of the UK rising to 70 million" most people would vote "yes"
And then what?
At least the EU referendum thing, which i never supported, was an issue which could be acted on one way or the other. We vote "no" we come out (and perish and die :-))
But vote to limit the population to 70 million?

[Ankou]

ichkeria, a national programme of vasectomies and hysterectomies ?

or would we it just need another petition to say:

chavs, benefits cheats, lowlife scum, workshy layabouts, gypsies and foreign looking people to have mandatory reproduction-organ-removal as a requirement to existing in the uk.

?

[ichkeria]

"a national programme of vasectomies and hysterectomies"

I like the idea of a hysteria-ectomy - surgical removal of the Daily Mail (!)