The Prime Minister was humiliated when a petition demanding a general election went viral, gaining nearly 2.8 million signatures in just a matter of days.
To add insult to injury, MPs will debate the petition in Parliament on January 6.
According to parliamentary rules, any petition with over 100,000 signatures must be debated in Parliament.
The petition was started by a Conservative voter from the West Midlands, who accuses Labour of breaking its pre-election promises.
After being posted last week, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and tech billionaire Elon Musk both promoted it online.
While the petition will not lead to a vote or another election, it comes as a blow to the Prime Minister and serves as an indicator of his popularity.
Speaking on The Division Bell podcast, The Express’ Christian Calgie said:
“[The petition’s] not going to cause an election, but I think even Labour’s biggest defenders would admit that the mood of the country five months after the 1997 election was a heck of a lot different to where it is today.”
“I think it’s surprising to me how unpopular Labour has become so quickly. You know, I thought it would take a couple of years to get to this point.”
Labour has faced mounting criticism since coming into power.
Stripping pensioners of winter fuel allowances, taxing farmers, and releasing prisoners early are just some of the policies that have faced backlash.
Christian said:
“I actually did warn the Tories off revelling because I think, to an extent, Labour are tactically right to frontload the unpopular decisions… but at the same time, a lot of unforced errors, and I would suggest that it’s not going brilliantly.”
The petition is yet another indicator of the nation’s fury toward our new Prime Minister.
Just last week, over ten thousand farmers took to the streets of Westminster to protest Labour’s brutal tax policies.
At this week’s PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch used the petition to take a swipe at the Prime Minister.
Badenoch said it indicated “two million people asking him to go” as they clashed over tax rises.
Christian said:“PMQs is definitely getting more interesting or more entertaining. It’s certainly much more entertaining than we’ve had for a very long time… it’s probably not since Boris was doing PMQs that we’ve had two party leaders who really hate each other as much as Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch do.”
“I think [Badenoch’s] feisty, and she’s energetic.”
For more, you can listen to The Division Bell on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts
