1.1.1– Systems of direct democracy
An e-petition set up in opposition to the Labour government’s plans to introduce a digital ID scheme easily surpassed 100,000 signatures required for it to be considered for debate. The petition had reached over 2.7m signatures by Friday 3 October.
E-petitions were introduced under New Labour. Originally hosted on the UK Government website, they moved to Parliament’s site in 2015. If a signature reaches 10,000 signatures it will receive an official response from the government. If it reaches 100,000 signatures it will be considered for debate by the Petitions Committee.
The speed with which the petition gathered signatures may be considered proof of the strength of feeling felt by some about the proposals, widely seen by many as an afront to their civil liberties, even though the details of the plans having yet been announced.
E-petitions have, on occasion, helped to bring about a change in policy from the government. An example of this was regarding the provision of Free School Meals. A petition reaching over one million signatures – and vociferously supported by the footballer Marcus Rashford – led to the government announcing it would be extending the scheme to more families.
However, there are far more examples of petitions which were widely supported but effectively ignored by the government, such as the 2019 petition calling for a second referendum on Brexit despite being signed by over six million people. This demonstrates that, as a representative democracy, governments can rely on their mandates to determine policy, rather than by swayed by public opinion on a case-by-case basis. Nonetheless, any government would be remiss to completely ignore e-petitions as they are an indication of public opinion, and they may therefore look to tweak or amend policies to minimise the public backlash they incur.