With the petition to cancel Brexit past 1 million signatures already, the prime minister (still at the time of writing) is clearly flustered, as she’s announced a new emergency measure.
She has given Chris “Failing” Grayling responsibility for the petitions website.
In a press statement, she said:
“It is absolutely unacceptable that the people express their will in this way, they must be prevented from doing so at all costs.”
By “in this way” she is of course referring to the democratic right of free speech.
The idea came to her after the immense number of signatures the petition was receiving actually crashed the government’s petitions website.
“If the website stays down,” Mrs May went on, “people will not be able to express their democratic free will in this way. And with Chris Grayling in charge, we will ensure that it goes down and stays down – crash it means crash it.”
Mr Grayling is looking forward to a job where things going wrong is the specific objective.
“I’ve been doing some research on how to cause a really spectacular crash,” he said. “And I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Launchpad McQuack, whose motto was ‘if it’s got wings, I can crash it’ – well, my motto for this is, if it has webs, I can crash it.”
Rumours that Mr McQuack was may’s first choice to head the petitions website have been dismissed by may on the grounds that the legendary pilot to Scrooge McDuck is a fictional character, however many have expressed the view that such a detail would not stop her if she felt she could get away with it.
It is estimated that if Mr Grayling lives up to his usual standards, the website will be crashed for good, when the petition reaches between 35 and 40 million signatures.