MPs pressured to debate new common election with publicans petition ‘a kick up bottom’ | Politics | News | EUROtoday

The pub proprietor whose petition calling for a common election has gained greater than three million signatures says politicians have gotten a “kick up the backside”.

On Monday MPs will debate Michael Westwood’s name for the nation to go to the polls simply six months after the summer season election which put in Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister.

Mr Westwood’s petition states he desires a brand new election as a result of Labour has “gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election”.

In some constituencies greater than eight per cent of individuals have signed the petition.

Mr Westwood, whose pubs embody the Waggon and Horses in Oldbury, doesn’t anticipate Monday’s Westminster Hall debate to result in a re-run of the election however he mentioned the petition has “given politicians in general a kick up the backside”. He says it was a possibility for people who find themselves “sick of being lied to by this government or previous governments” to return collectively and try to make a change.

Describing the message he believes the three million signatories have despatched to elected representatives, he mentioned: “Do you know what, if you keep upsetting the public they are going to raise their voice and try to be heard.”

He is unimpressed that Labour was in a position to win 412 of the UK’s 650 constituencies on 34 per cent of the vote and needs to vary the electoral system.

However, he has no plans to face for election himself.

He mentioned: “What I’d like to do is try and make a change to the system and where that leads to, who knows?”

In the meantime, he’s involved that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s determination to hike up employers’ National Insurance Contributions will make like tougher within the pub trade.

“It’s only going to get worse,” he mentioned.

Politicians from Opposition events are in little doubt why the petition has struck such a chord.

Conservative MP Peter Bedford mentioned: “It is clear from the millions of signatories to this petition that the public, just months after a general election, have buyers’ remorse. Their promise, before the general election, not to raise taxes has been shown to be totally bogus; and the public are understandably enraged.”

SNP MP Kirsty Blackman mentioned: “The Labour Government has had a disastrous first six months in power with Sir Keir Starmer breaking promise after promise to the electorate – it’s no wonder voters are furious.

“Despite promising ‘change’ during the election campaign, instead Sir Keir Starmer robbed pensioners of their Winter Fuel Payment, maintained the two-child cap, betrayed the Waspi women and let energy bills soar even higher.

“The Labour party simply picked up where the Tories left off and it’s no surprise to see their support plummeting.”

The Government insists it was elected on a “mandate of change,” stating it “inherited unprecedented challenges, with crumbling public services and crippled public finances” however pledging to “deliver a decade of national renewal”.