A GOVERNMENT petition calling for Article 50 to be revoked has been signed by more than two million people despite the website repeatedly crashing throughout the day.

At one point, you could watch the numbers soar in real time, gaining signatures at a rate of almost 2000 per minute.

With the total creeping towards 600,000 signatures at around 9am on Thursday 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 since crashed again.

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.

Trouble on the home front for May

THERESA May is facing a furious backlash from MPs who said they have been assaulted and subjected to death threats after her controversial televised address blaming them for the Brexit deadlock.

Parliamentarians from all sides lined up to condemn her remarks, warning that they had put them in danger of physical attack by angry members of the public.

Anna Soubry, the pro-Remain MP who now sits as an independent, said she was unable to travel home this weekend after receiving “very, very serious” death threats.

Senior backbenchers said the Prime Minister’s broadcast on Wednesday evening meant it would be even more difficult for her to get her Brexit deal through the Commons when it returns next week. Downing Street defended the remarks saying they had been intended as a “message to the public” to explain why she was now seeking a delay to Britain’s withdrawal date.

Asked about claims that they had jeopardised MPs’ personal safety, a No 10 spokeswoman said: “I flatly reject that.”

The Deputy Speaker of the Commons Lindsay Hoyle emailed MPs before May’s address advising them to travel by taxi or with colleagues amid heightened tensions in the run up to next week’s votes.

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle said three men had to intervene when an assailant tried to attack him, grabbing at his glasses after shouting that politicians were “traitors”. Russell-Moyle blamed the Prime Minister for having “whipped up fear and division with her speech last night”.

Operation Yellowhammer 

THE armed forces have set up a command centre in an underground bunker as part of contingency plans for the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal. Under Operation Redfold, the Ministry of Defence said it has committed to holding 3500 troops at readiness to help the government with any disruption following a no-deal departure from the EU. The plans are part of the Government’s Operation Yellowhammer preparations for the UK leaving without a deal.

It is understood the underground command centre will act as a base of operations to deal with requests for MoD support from other departments as well as directing the troops.

l Scottish Tory MP Andrew Bowie found himself under fire on Twitter after claiming the only way to rule out a No Deal Brexit was to vote for May’s deal.

Plenty of people pointed out, of course, that there was at least one alternative: revoke Article 50.