Farrukh Dhondy | How ‘petitions’, a ‘democratic’ idea, may be going over the top in Britain

“A God-fraud in Pune Had extremely little to say His principal con Prevailed upon Gullible idiots who would pay To listen to sermons galore Which are really a literal bore And not too complex Pushing ‘freedom’ and sex Pandering to the White insecure”. The party’s rules specify that if 15 per cent of the Tory MPs send in letters demanding a change of leadership to the chair of the party’s “1922 Committee”, which represents sitting party MPs, then a vote of no-confidence in the Prime Minister has to be held. It may say something like “My daughter Carol died of cancer at the age of 26 because the doctors at XYZ hospital wrongly diagnosed her fatal symptoms as ‘long-Covid’.” The petitioner then wants Parliament to pass some law which he or she believes may stop such fatally wrong tragic diagnoses to result in what their family had to suffer. Through this procedure, in the past weeks, a petition demanding that a fresh general election be held as the people of Britain were hoodwinked into voting for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, has garnered two million or so votes. And yes, folks, this is the same Tory cry-baby party that rejected outright a petition from six million people, who signed it after the very narrow Brexit vote, which called for a second referendum, which would perhaps have reversed the decision of the British voters when the true desperately-negative impact of Brexit became evident.