I’ve been promoting petitions on various subjects for over a decade and have frequently asked myself why I do it, I always come up with the same conclusion – because I must! It often seems to me that government petitions are intended to create the illusion that the government is interested in what ‘we the people’ think when the reality is they don’t care less! The issue has recently been raised by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS):

Does the parliamentary petition site make a difference? https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/does-the-parliamentary-petition-site-make-a-difference/

Here’s one petition that I continue to promote and ERS must support as it is the organisation raison d’être, the government’s response annoys me but it’s what I’ve come to expect.

 Referendum on changing the Electoral System To Proportional Representation (PR) https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700109 “The Government has no plans to change the voting system” We wouldn’t need a petition for something they planned on doing anyway 🙄

ERS could be accused of pleading their own case and focused on one particular case that quickly achieved 3,000,000 signatures in a very short time. It would have been difficult for the government to ignore it and it was debated on 6 January, although the petition will continue to run until 20 May. I haven’t watched the debate, or read the transcript, but you can do so here:

Petition: Call a General Election https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143

It doesn’t really matter as it’s unlikely to result in a new election. My response to an objection was that I’ld looked at the petition but hadn’t signed it. There was another petition demanding exactly the opposite and I haven’t signed that one that one either. There are several points worth noting:

1. The Petitions Committee approved their publication.
2. All signatories must have a UK postcode and can only vote once.
   I’ld be very surprised if it achieved its objective but such a level of dissatisfaction can’t be ignored.
3. Many of the signatories are no doubt right wing malcontents but the person who started the petition, is an old comrade with whom I don’t necessarily agree!

I summed up my opinion in a tweet in November 2024 and I haven’t changed it since.

This Petition already has over two million signatures and gaining more every minute. It doesn’t matter wether you believe we should have another General Election, such a display of dissatisfaction with the government cannot be ignored. Democracy should mean more than voting every few years for a limited number of candidates with policies so similar that you need a microscope to see the difference. I don’t see any need to sign it myself, nor will I criticise anyone who chooses to do so

That’s really it in a nutshell as far as this petition is concerned, but ERS does raise important issues. The government sets a very high bar. A friend of mine did manage, after many years of campaigning to, get a change in the law – a remarkable achievement! I personally planned on starting a petition but had to wait for a new Petitions Committee to be formed after the general election, and it took so long after a chairman was appointed that someone else submitted a petition on the same subject! I did have the consolation of knowing it was debated, a previous one didn’t succeed because it didn’t present the arguments that mine would’ve done.

For a government petition to be approved for publication it needs 6 sponsors, these are trusted comrades who understand the purpose of the petition without knowing the details until it goes public. The Petitions Committee will reject a petition that is substantially the same as one that was as one that is already active (this is why my petitions weren’t approved).

Once approved, a petition has 6 months in which to get 100,000 signatures and be considered for debate – a seemingly impossible target which makes the success of the of the one calling for a fresh election remarkable. It happens that I know the person who started it and he’s no right-wing nutter, although many who signed it probably are. If anything, he’s further to the left than I am! That’s beside the point, I’m not concerned with one specific petition.

One of the petitions I’ve started personally failed to reach the 10,000 signatures needed for a response, despite having the full support of the Fire Brigades Union and my personal lobbying of MPs – some of whom did respond favourably but didn’t give as much as I hoped for.

If a petition does receive a response it’s usually of a standard form. “The government has no plans to do XYZ.” This infuriates me and goads me to campaign even harder. We wouldn’t need a petition demanding that the government do something they were planning to do anyway, although we might need to take further action to hold them to their word!

The Petitions Committee won’t consider petitions on other sites but they can be circumvented by printing out a list of signatories and delivering it directly to the door of No10, or whichever department it’s addressed.

A petition, on any platform, has more chance of succeeding if it has an MP behind it. I’ve supported several petitions started by Zarah Sultana MP who is currently suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party and it’s unlikely the whip will be restored. She just won’t stay silent, and neither will I!

Which brings me back to what I wanted to say. Petitions, however ineffective, give a voice to those of us who are unable to take direct action – I have limited mobility but have a wheelchair if anyone can assist me to get to a rally or picket line. There are other forms of online activism such as writing to our MP but I don’t usually bother.

I don’t think it counts as campaigning if I only share a petition or an article once – I have to repeat them to give more people chance to see them – but twice a month is sufficient.

I’m exploring new ways to campaign online, including collaborating with comrades, and need to articulate my own opinion. That’s what this blog is really about, although I didn’t realise that until I finished. That was a common experience as an undergraduate philosophy – I’ld start an essay with no idea of where it would end.

This essay has no end other than my self-imposed one.