Does what is says on the tin, and it is here, created by Lib Dem Martin Shapland.
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Ben Wood
It is such sad news. I was lucky to get to know Micheal over the last few years (working on a book project for the John Stuart Mill Institute). He reaffirmed fo...
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22 Comments
Shame, the link doesn’t work…
The link gives an error. Unlike with the death penalty, I think you can fix that.
Actually it doesn’t: the system has crashed, no doubt because millions of Mail, etc., readers have logged on at the same time to sign the pro hangers’ petition.
Correction: link does work, but epetitions website keeps crashing…
I thought the old petition system rejected petitions that were substantially identical to other live ones – there seem to be at least 5 rival “don’t bring back the death penalty” petitions up there
A completely ridiculous waste of time which merely gives credibility to the self-serving idiots promoting the pro-death petition.
By having an anti petition, we enter a numbers race with the pro side and the debate becomes about who has more signatures rather than the merits of capital punishment.
But by entering the debate at all we give credibility to the idea that this might happen. Capital punishment cannot be brought back in the UK thanks to the ECHR. Why debate something which (thankfully) cannot be changed?
Why not expend summer energies on campaigning on things that matter more to people.
Agree with Alex.
I’m pretty sure capital punishment is outlawed inside the EU, so even if there was a move to restore it, we couldn’t.
Unfortunately the link still does not work? If it is fixed we can promote it locally.
@alex @andrew – I agree this is a complete waste of time. There is no likelihood of Parlaiment voting to restore capital punishment. But to argue that something should not be voted up because even if it was passed it is against the ECHR or we would have to leave the EU (not sure if the latter is true by the way) is simply give weight to those who want to reform the ECHR.
it isn’t the link that doesn’t work, it is the service as my petition generates the same error message.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/572
“I agree this is a complete waste of time. There is no likelihood of Parlaiment voting to restore capital punishment.”
It would seem to me to all the more valuable then, for it will educate the electorate on how interested its governing elite is in representing their needs.
“But to argue that something should not be voted up because even if it was passed it is against the ECHR is simply give weight to those who want to reform the ECHR.”
Quite, a pleasing prospect!
It would be great if liberals could be mobilised and we could get anywhere near the signatures on the anti-death penalty petition as on the bring back one. Alas, I sincerely doubt that will happen, even on this thread most people are taking the ‘no chance it will happen anyway’, which I agree with but still it would just be nice if for once we could try and match the right wing populists!
Here’s the anti-capital punishment one.
So far it has more signatures than the pro, but the pro one will have the full force of the tabloids behind it.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1090
In other news, doesn’t this petitioner realise that the last government got even more power with an even smaller percentage of the vote?
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/10
How bizzare.
Why would you want a debate on something that isn’t going to be brought in? – Kinda wastes parliamentary time….
Anyway, the death penalty is banned by the EU – so it’s another thing our MPs aren’t allowed to decide anymore.
What a pointless waste of time this article and the Lib Dem petition is….
“Why would Syrians want a protest on freedom that isn’t going to be allowed? – Kinda wastes President Assad’s time….”
how does that sound?
public recognition of the fact that it may not be allowed is possibly the most valuable result we could derive from the exercise!
I think surely at this point it’s not about seeking a debate but making a statement that many of us are as passonately against re-instatement on principle, in which case the likelihood or legality of it’s return is irrelavent.
I signed the anti-petition, because although we may never be allowed to have capital punishment back (good) it is still legal in many countries and I’ll take every public opportunity to register my prinicpled objection to it.
What happens if this e-petion gets 100,000 signitures? Won’t we end up with parliament wasting time by holding the same debate but with the question phrased from a differant angle?
I thought of submitting a petition calling for no debate to be held but with this one already out there I wonder wether it be be overshadowed by this one, even though it’s calling for the wrong thing.
We live, fortunately, in a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. You can mix the two sorts, as, for example, in Switzerland, but you need a properly defined constitution for such a system to work. All this ill-thought out piece of populist garbage does is to give credibility to that sector of society which whinges about MPs not listening to what the public wants, and in particular to tabloid journalists who have never been elected to represent anybody.
I’m with Katherine.
I could see these statements being fairly influential if left unchallenged.
If the death penalty gets enough signatures for a debate and the house rejects it, the right wing press will throth all about politicians ignoring normal people. If there’s a competing petition with more signatures then we rob them off their moral victory and bury the idea.
“I could see these statements being fairly influential if left unchallenged.”
quite right, public debate of this nature is ezactly what should happen.
on this issue i have no real opinion, and care only about what the people want.
@jedibeeftrix
“On this issue..”
Does that mean that you have a different view when it comes to other issues?
well of course Hywel.
there are things i am passionate about, notably geopolitics including foreign policy and defence, national politics insomuch as it deals with the norms that surround representation and accountability, and technology for both its own sake and in how it affects all of the above.
other than that, and my own personal interests such mountain biking, reading and friends and family, not to much.
i am considered, i believe, to be a bit of a cold-fish by those who know me, but on the above i can almost pretend to be a real human being. 🙂