3m back call for second EU vote

Nearly three-million people have signed a parliamentary petition calling for a second referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union.

So many people were trying to log on to the website to sign the petition that the website crashed for several hours.

By 9am today, 2,842,843 people had signed.

Any British citizen can sign, regardless of where they live, as can all UK residents.

The petition was set up by William Oliver Healey. He wrote: “We the undersigned call upon HM government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based on a turnout less than 75%, there should be another referendum.”

It will be debated at a meeting of the government’s Petitions Committee on Tuesday, after passing the 100,000-votes threshold needed. The webpage states that it is waiting for a debate date.

It is by far the most-signed parliamentary petition. Previously, the most popular called for the government to give all children the meningitis B vaccination. It picked up 820,000 signatures; a petition calling for Donald Trump to be barred from the UK was signed by nearly 587,000 people.

A second petition calling on London mayor Sadiq Khan to declare London independent from the rest of the UK and apply to join the

EU has the support of more than 160,000 signatories. More than 70% of voters in the capital wanted to remain a member of the EU.

Meanwhile, support for another referendum for Scottish independence - where voters were also strongly in favour of Remain - has the support of 59% of voters, according to a poll for a Sunday newspaper.