Less than 1,000 Fenlanders sign anti-Brexit petition

Fewer than 1,000 Fenland people have signed a petition calling for the Government to revoke Article 50 and for Britain to stay in the EU.

As of 5.30pm yesterday (Thursday) only 989 in the North East Cambridgeshire parliamentary constituency had signed the petition (just 0.8 per cent of the population) - which has seen more than 2.5m nationwide sign up in less than two days.

In June 2016's referendum Fenland voters overwhelmingly supported leaving the EU - 71.4 per cent Leave compared to 28.6 per cent Remain, and it appears that majority view has not changed in the past three years.

The petition reads: “The Government repeatedly claims exiting the EU is ‘the will of the people’.

“We need to put a stop to this claim by proving the strength of public support now for remaining in the EU. A People's Vote may not happen – so vote now.”

More than 1 million people had signed the petition by early afternoon on Thursday and that number was up to 2.8million this morning (Friday), following increased activity on the website after the Prime Minister's speech on Wednesday night.

Revoke Article 50 began trending on Twitter following the speech and continued to be a global trend into Thursday.

In her Downing Street statement, Theresa May blamed MPs for failing to implement the result of the 2016 EU referendum and told frustrated voters: "I am on your side."

The Petitions Committee said nearly 2,000 signatures were being completed every minute over Thursday lunchtime, crashing the website because of the unprecedented number of visitors.

The petition is the third most popular to be submitted to the Parliament website, surpassing the 100,000-signature threshold needed for it to be debated in Parliament.

A 2016 petition calling for a second EU referendum should the winning vote and turnout not reach a certain threshold has received the most signatories to date, at almost 4.2 million.

A petition to prevent Donald Trump from making a state visit to the UK is in second place with 1.9 million sign-ups.

The petition to revoke Article 50 was welcomed as a "solution" to the current crisis by former Labour MEP Catherine Stihler.

She was part of the legal challenge led by six pro-Remain Scottish politicians that confirmed Article 50 could be unilaterally revoked by the UK Government.