1.5 million Britons wake up, now want to be back in EU

More than 1.5 million people have signed a petition calling for a second referendum, after a shock vote to pull Britain out of the European Union (EU). The website of the parliamentary petition at one point on Saturday crashed due to the surge of people adding their names to the call for another nationwide poll following Thursday’s historic vote.

“We, the undersigned, call upon HM government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60 per cent based (on) a turnout, less than 75 per cent, there should be another referendum,” says the petition.

Turnout for Thursday’s referendum was 72.2 per cent with the “Leave” camp getting 51.9 per cent voters, and the “Remain” camp 48.1 per cent.

There would be no immediate effects from the petition except for a formal discussion in Parliament, required for any petition that has over 100,000 signatures.

University of Strathclyde professor John Curtice said a second referendum could take place if “Boris Johnson is running the government and it (Brexit) is taking a long time to be implemented. Two years down the line we could have another poll showing people actually want to reverse the decision and remain in.”

Then there could be a situation where the opposition party in a general election have a mandate to hold a new referendum.”