More than 10,000 Herefordians sign national petition calling for general election

More than 10,000 people in Herefordshire have signed a national petition calling for a fresh general election.

In North Herefordshire, the constituency of Green MP Ellie Chowns, 5,580 people have signed at time of writing, amounting to over 6 per cent of all registered inhabitants.

In Hereford and South Herefordshire, seat of Conservative shadow Leader of the House Jesse Norman, 4,441 people have signed, or 4.6 per cent on constituents.

“I believe the current Labour Government have gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election,” the apparently non-party-political petition on Parliament’s website says.

It has already gained over 2.6 million signatures nationally, with levels of support typically around twice as high in areas which did not return a Labour MP in July’s general election.

The figure represents around 3.9 per cent of the UK population. But there appears to have been many overseas signatories following its promotion by X owner Elon Musk, a vocal opponent of the Labour government.

Parliament is in theory supposed to debate any petition on its website which gains over 100,000 signatures.

The unpopularity of the Labour government in the county was highlighted at a farmers’ protest last week in Ross-on-Wye, which drew hundreds of demonstrators opposed to new changes to the tax system.

But south of the river Labour put up a historically strong showing in July, gaining nearly 30 per cent of the vote and squeezing Mr Norman’s majority to 1,279.

Dr Chowns, a co-founder and vice-chair of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections, said she was “not surprised to see that many people are unhappy with the Labour government”.

But she added: “More than another general election, I believe it is time we finally have a fair and proportional voting system so that Parliament properly represents the views of the nation.”

Mr Norman was also asked to comment.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said in response to the success of the petition on ITV’s This Morning on Monday, “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.”