Yahoo News Map shows where in the UK 'Stop Brexit' petition is most popular
An interactive map has emerged of the UK that shows where a viral petition to cancel Brexit is most popular.
More than 1.3 million people (as of Thursday evening) have signed the petition asking the government to revoke Article 50 and keep the UK in the EU.
At its peak, around 2,000 people were signing a minute, with the Government’s Petitions Committee confirming the rate of signing was the highest it had ever had to deal with and that they were struggling to keep the site stable.
Momentum behind the petition grew as the Prime Minister made her way to Brussels on Thursday morning following a speech outside Downing Street on Wednesday in which she said people were “fed up” with the negotiations. “I’m on your side”, she told people.
As of Thursday night, Mrs May was struggling to get EU leaders to agree to an extension.
As of publication, the top 10 places where most number of people have signed the petition are:
Bristol West: 7,523
Hornsey and Wood Greed: 6,494
Brighton Pavillion: 6,369
Cambridge: 6,323
Edinburgh North and Leith: 6,221
Islington North: 5,758
Hackney North and Stoke Newington: 5,559
Dulwich and West Norwood: 5,428
Holborn and St Pancras: 5,377
Lewisham, Deptford: 5,261
You can check out the map, which was created by ODI Leeds, below:
The creator of the map, Stuart Lowe, data scientist at ODI Leeds, told Yahoo News UK: “I created it originally for the 2015 general election, and as petition.org has open data I could apply it to this petition.
“The reason why it’s a hex map is to give equal weight to each constituency and to give it the best feel of what the country is like, because every MP should represent their area equally.
The petition was created yesterday by Margaret Anne Georgiadou, who told the BBC: “I became like every other Remainer – very frustrated that we’ve been silenced and ignored for so long.
“So I think now it’s almost like a dam bursting, because we’ve been held back in a sense, it’s almost like last chance saloon now.”
