More than 700,000 people have rushed to sign a petition on the British parliament’s website calling for the government to revoke its divorce notice to the European Union (EU) and remain in the bloc.
Attracting thousands of signatures every few minutes, the petition took off in the hours after Prime Minister Theresa May made a televised address to the country late on Tuesday.
In the address, May criticised squabbling lawmakers for failing to agree an exit strategy and telling parliament to make a final choice.
“It is high time we made a decision,” May said, telling Britons: “I am on your side.”
EU leaders will tell May on Thursday she can have two months to organise an orderly Brexit but Britain could face a disruptive ejection from the bloc next Friday if she fails to win backing from parliament.
More than 17 million Britons voted in favour of leaving the EU in a 2016 referendum while 16 million voted to remain, with May serving notice of the UK’s intent to leave under Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty the following year.
The “Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU” petition on the parliament website had attracted 706,096 signatures by 1048 GMT, backed by support on social media, although the site appeared to be regularly crashing due to the large numbers trying to sign.
“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,” the petition said.
Parliament must consider holding a debate on all petitions that gain more than 100,000 signatures.
Supporters wrote on Twitter that the petition showed the strength of feeling against May’s strategy while backers of Brexit said it needed to attract more signatures than the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU three years ago before anyone should take any notice.
More than 1.8 million people signed a petition calling for U.S. President Donald Trump to be prevented from making a state visit to Britain, leading to a debate in parliament in 2017.
More than four million people signed another petition in 2016 which called for another EU referendum in the event that neither the remain or leave camps achieved 60 per cent of the vote.
Also, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, expressed readiness on Thursday to back a short extension to Britain’s planned exit from the EU, suggesting that the June 30 date requested by May was problematic.
May has asked European Council President Donald Tusk to delay Brexit from March 29 until the end of June and said she was preparing for a third vote in the British parliament on the exit deal she arduously negotiated with the EU.
Addressing the German lower house before a summit of EU leaders, Merkel appeared to share concerns by the European Commission that May’s proposed delay means Britain would still be an EU member during European Parliament elections in May.
“With regard to the date of June 30, we have to take into consideration that we have European elections in May,” Merkel said.
“This means the future and legality of the European election must be respected. But we can surely talk positively about a short extension.”
A European Commission document seen by Reuters said the delay should either be several weeks shorter, to avoid a clash with the EU elections, or last at least until the end of the year, which would oblige Britain to take part in the vote.
In her speech, Merkel echoed Tusk’s position that it would be possible to grant Britain a short postponement if parliament backs May’s proposed agreement next week, after voting it down twice before.
Merkel said Germany would back May’s request that EU leaders approve an agreement governing the Irish “backstop,” which she described as the most difficult aspect of Brexit.
The backstop is intended to prevent the return of a hard border between EU member Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland, if no trade agreement is reached that makes it unnecessary.
May secured an agreement with the EU earlier this month that provides some guarantees that the bloc cannot use the backstop to trap the United Kingdom indefinitely in its customs union.
“The second request was to delay the exit date to June 30. The leaders of the EU 27 will intensively discuss this request. In principal, we can meet this request if we have a positive vote in the British parliament next week about the exit document,” Merkel said.
In another development, British retailers racked up surprisingly strong sales in February, reinforcing how spending by consumers is a bright spot for the economy ahead of Brexit.
Retail sales grew by an annual 4.0 per cent in February, the top end of a range of forecasts by economists, and down only slightly from January’s two-year high of 4.1 percent, official data showed on Thursday.
Mild weather in February boosted spending at garden centres and on sporting equipment, offsetting a fall in spending at supermarkets and in clothing stores after sales promotions in January, the Office for National Statistics said.
“It is possible that some consumers brought forward purchases amid concern prices could rise if a disruptive Brexit at the end of March sees sterling weaken sharply,” Howard Archer of economic consultancy EY ITEM Club said.
Consumer spending has been a source of strength for the world’s fifth-largest economy at a time when businesses say that Brexit uncertainty is forcing them to postpone investment and a slower global economy is hurting export demand.
Thursday’s data showed sales volumes in February alone rose 0.4 per cent versus a forecast of a decline in the Reuters poll.
Annual sales growth for the three months to February was its strongest in over two years.
Falling inflation, a steady rise in wages and the lowest unemployment since 1975 have all boosted household incomes over the past year, though wages are still below their peak before the financial crisis after factoring in inflation.
Earlier on Thursday, British clothing chain next reported a small fall in annual profit, hurt by lower store sales, and it forecast another decline for this year, but said Brexit was not to blame.
