All the rage in the UK at the moment are E-petitions. The way it works is that if you can get 100,000 people to sign your petition it will be ‘eligible’ to be debated in parliament.
I rather think that the optics of this – Mr Cameron saying smugly that parliament should not be divorced from the views of the British people – are more important than the substance. It’s not much of a concession if Parliament doesn’t in fact have to vote on it at all.
Anyway, the two front runners are, as you can imagine, for restoring capital punishment and for a referendum on continued membership of the EU.
The first, led by blogger Guido, can be signed here, and the second, organised by The Daily Express can be signed here.
Reintroducing capital punishment would involve withdrawing fro the European Convention on Human Rights. There are several good reasons for tearing up the ECHR but in my view capital punishment is not one of them. I am however in favour of leaving the EU, and am confident that a referendum on the subject would produce a resounding majority for doing so. Which is why we won’t have one.
Neither of these motions has the faintest chance of success and nor have any of the others. The political class is revolted by the idea of the country being run by popular outcry. But I think Cameron may have made a mistake in raising the hopes of the British people only to dash them.
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