Rejected petition Introduce a mechanism to allow UK citizens to call a general election

General elections occur every 5 years and can only take place earlier at the behest of the incumbent Prime Minister. If there is significant dissatisfaction with the actions of Government, UK Citizens have few options, other than disruptive civil disobedience, to make their voices heard.

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Introducing a new mechanism that would allow UK citizens to trigger a general election would make the UK Government significantly more accountable to the electorate, at all times during its tenure, and reduce civil unrest.

The mechanism could include, initially, a petition for a General Election referendum hitting a pre-determined number of signatures on this site, (perhaps 2-4 million) with the referendum itself requiring a significant majority of people (70/30 or 80/20) voting in favour.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.

You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

We believe your ask is already covered by two petitions we currently have open:

Change the law so that UK citizens can call a General election
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/618068

Introduce a mechanism for the public to call a 'No Confidence Referendum'
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/624332

We also have the following petitions open on a similar topic:

Impose new requirements on replacing the Prime Minister and subsequent election
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623200

Require a referendum on whether to hold an early general election if PM changes
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623922

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 15 October 2022
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The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.