4,000,000 people sign Revoke Article 50 petition in a bid to stop Brexit

Four million people have now signed the petition urging to Government to revoke Article 50 and put a stop to Brexit.

The Revoke Article 50 petition is the second most popular ever submitted to the Parliament website with the highest rate of sign-ups on record, according to the official Petitions Committee.

Despite the petition garnering a huge following, Theresa May ruled out cancelling the countdown during her visit to Brussels earlier this week.

She said: “I do not believe that we should be revoking Article 50.”

The petition has surpassed another proposal which sought to prevent Donald Trump from making a state visit to the UK, which had 1.9 million sign-ups.

The Revoke Article 50 campaign is edging close to the website’s biggest ever, a 2016 petition calling for a second EU referendum should the winning vote and turnout not reach a certain threshold, which has received the most signatories to date, at almost 4.2 million.

The official website has crashed numerous times since the petition leapt in popularity following the Prime Minister’s statement on Wednesday, with MPs and celebrities publicly backing the appeal.

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

The petition quickly passed the 100,000-signature threshold needed for it to be debated in Parliament, with the official committee revealing nearly 2,000 signatures were being completed every minute during its peak.

On Thursday, EU leaders said Brexit could be delayed from March 29 to May 22 – but only on the condition that MPs vote for Mrs May’s deal next week.

If it is rejected in the third “meaningful vote”, the UK would have until April 12 to tell the European Council a way forward.

An extension could continue for several more months if Britain agreed to vote in May’s European Parliament elections.