A GOVERNMENT petition website calling for Article 50 to be revoked crashed after gaining signatures at a rate of almost 2000 per minute.
With the total creeping towards 600,000 signatures at around 9am this morning, the website was taken “down for maintenance” with the suggestion to “please try again later”.
The website was then restored some time after 11am but has since crashed again.
During that time the total was above 739,000 and when The National checked, the rate at which people were signing was 1951 per minute.
The site has since been restored for a second time, with the amount of signatures at 836,326 at the time of writing.
Petitions on the site require 100,000 backing the call for it to be debated in Parliament, and just 10,000 for a government response.
The petition calls for the UK Government to revoke Article 50 and keep the UK in the EU.
“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,” it reads.
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We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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