The big problem with the ‘Revoke Article 50’ petition

Writing a piece on why the ‘Revoke Article 50’ petition is a waste of time, for an audience consisting of the student body of the fourth most Remain city in the country (Oxford), is not the easiest task. So I’ll try to avoid making the arguments that the petition-signatories amongst you might be expecting me to make: I could frame my argument around the fact that some of the signatures appear to have come from all over the globe – including from North Korea – and that, therefore, this petition is broken and should have no bearing over our politics: this is why we register to vote and then do so at a local polling station. But I won’t. I could frame my argument around the fact that the petition, as little more than an online survey, is intrinsically broken: it is vulnerable to duplicated signatures through multiple email addresses, or to bots as the site has no ‘captcha’ verification; nor does it for age.