'That's not how it works': Starmer responds to election petition with questionable signatures

A petition calling for another General Election in the UK has gained more than two million signatures - but petition data indicates that many of its purported supporters may not be genuine.

The petition - listed on Parliament's official petitions website - is calling for another election, claiming Labour has "gone back on the promises they laid out" in its last campaign.

It is likely that hundreds of thousands of the signatures are genuine considering Prime Minister Keir Starmer's popularity has plummeted since his landslide election win, according to recent polls.

But petition data shows the locations of people who have allegedly signed the petition, many of which are from foreign countries.

Despite accusations that foreign bots have been signing the petition, a House of Commons spokesperson said: "The system has a range of automated and manual checks in place to identify fraudulent signatures. We are confident in the robustness of the system."

Starmer did not suggest the petition was signed by fake people when asked about it on ITV's This Morning on Monday morning, but he did rule out calling a new election.

Starmer reacts to general election petition while appearing on ITV's This Morning

“Look, I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election. I’m not surprised that many of them want a rerun. That isn’t how our system works.

“There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in in the first place. So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make every day.”

Under UK petition rules, any petition with more than 100,000 signatures must be considered for a debate in Parliament.

It is difficult to know just how many of the signatories may not be genuine, but the petition was shared by people with huge online followings such as Nigel Farage and Elon Musk, so a huge number will be real.

Despite reports that Parliament's petitions system is easy to bypass in order to make fraudulent signatures, a House of Commons source told ITV News that most are thought to be genuine.

Musk, who owns the social media platform X, wrote: "The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state."

Asked if he was concerned about foreign influence in UK petitions, Starmer's spokesperson said the prime minister was instead focused on government priorities such as tackling anti-social behaviour.

The world's richest man has been criticising the UK and its prime minister for months.

The PM has mostly ignored Musk's comments but his spokesperson hit back after the social media boss claimed "civil war is inevitable" in the UK in response to the summer riots.

There is "no justification for comments like that" and "anyone who is whipping up violence online will face the full force of the law", Starmer's spokesperson said.

Despite Musk being given a role in Donald Trump's upcoming White House administration, it does not appear he will be taking a more diplomatic tone with the UK any time soon.

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