‘Sack Cummings’ petition set to test whether Boris Johnson has any interest in democracy


A million signatures is a lot of people, but you can be sure that Boris Johnson will try to ignore this public exercise of democracy.

My reason for saying this is simple: look where the petition is being hosted.

If it had been on the UK Parliament’s petition page, it would have needed only 100,000 signatures to guarantee a discussion in the House of Commons – but it would never have achieved it because it would have been removed on the grounds that petitions about government employees are forbidden.

So much for democracy.

As this one is on Change.org, it give Johnson an opportunity to deny its legitimacy and refuse to pay attention to it, no matter how many people eventually sign.

Remember when the ‘Revoke Brexit’ e-petition – that was on the UK Parliament site – reached six million signatures?

Even after there was a debate in the Commons, the government of the day ignored it.

Johnson will try the same tactic here – but he has far less justification for doing so.

Even after the Brexit e-petition gained its six million names, that was only slightly more than a third of the number of people who voted to leave the EU, so there was some legitimacy in the claim that it should not overthrow the referendum decision (although the fact that the claim was made before the final number of signatures was known made it ambiguous at the time).

But nobody voted Cummings into Downing Street. He’s a hired hand.

The fact that so many people have signed a petition calling for his removal is significant – and indicates that far more people are unhappy with him continuing to hold any position within the workings of government.

So Johnson has put himself between a rock and a hard place.

If he sacks Cummings, then he will be admitting he was wrong to support his chief advisor. But the longer he delays, the more people lose confidence in him – and the more likely he is to be replaced.

A petition calling for Dominic Cummings’ departure from government is on course to reach one million signatures, as fury over the scandal fails to die down.

A Change.org page that demands the PM’s top aide either resigns or is sacked now has the backing of more than 945,000 people.

A survey has suggested that 80% of the public disagrees with his actions, while around 40 Tory MPs have called for him to leave Downing Street.

Source: Petition for Dominic Cummings’ sacking set to hit 1,000,000 signatures | Metro News

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3 Comments

  1. SteveH May 29, 2020 at 5:02 pm - Reply

    As Johnson totally ignored the Revoke Article 50 petition (over 6,000,000 signatures) and removed the Tory whip from those within his party who disagreed with him when he didn’t have a majority I can’t see him taking much notice of this one either.

  2. Colin Farlow May 29, 2020 at 6:32 pm - Reply

    As usual, a great item. But can I ask if Hugo Swire is still paying for his advert? You do know that he hasn’t been MP for anywhere since last December?

    • Mike Sivier May 30, 2020 at 6:11 pm - Reply

      You’d have to ask Google Adsense about that, not me. I haven’t seen that particular ad.

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