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Do e-petitions really work?

Do e-petitions really work?
Do e-petitions really work? Do e-petitions really work?

On Tuesday, the Government announced it would not be rescinding its State Visit invitation to Donald Trump, despite an e-petition on the matter reaching over 1.8m signatures.

This most recent rejection follows a series of e-petitions which have failed to affect Government policy. This begs the question: Do e-petitions work?

Not technically, no.If you look at the top 10 petitions on the Parliament website, none of them have effected tangible policy change from the Government. They include asking for a second referendum on the EU (4,150,260 signatures), for cannabis to be made legal (236,995 signatures) and asking Parliament for a vote of no confidence in Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (339,925 signatures).The only one which came close to changing Government policy was the petition to accept more asylum seekers and increase support for refugees. The petition was signed by 450,287 people. As public pressure mounted, an emergency debate was held and David Cameron announced the UK would take 20,000 more Syrians directly from refugee camps, as well as £100m more in foreign aid. So is it all a bit pointless, then?Not at all. The big issue is what petitioners view as successful outcomes of a petition when they set it up. “There is a need to continue to manage the expectations of petitioners, so they are clear what they can and cannot achieve by submitting a petition,” says Dr. Catherine Bochel, a reader in policy studies at the University of Lincoln, whose research focuses on petitions systems in the UK.

Although the explainer video above and documents on the website are clear about what outcomes are possible, it seems this message isn’t reaching everyone who signs a petition.What are these other outcomes?“In the case of the collaborative UK government and Parliament [e-petition] system, the website sets out a range of things that petitioners can achieve, including getting a response from the relevant government department once a petition has reached the 10,000 signature threshold and being considered for a debate in Parliament at the 100,000 signature threshold,” says Bochel.

“There are also a range of flexible actions that the Petitions Committee can take, including for example, asking for further information/evidence on the topic of the petition from relevant individuals and organisations, inviting petitioners to give evidence to the Committee, and holding investigations into petitions.”Bochel argues that these outcomes may not be what the petitioner hoped for when setting up the petition, but they can help them to achieve their aims. E-petitions can also raise public awareness of an issue. Take the third-most-popular petition since the start of the e-petition system, the meningitis B vaccination, as an example.After some high-profile cases of meningitis B in children, a petition was started to ask the Government to give the a vaccine to all children, not just newborn babies.

The Health and Petitions committee hear evidence during a hearing on the Meningitis B vaccine (PA)

Although the Government rejected changing the law on this, the petition, which gained over 820,000 signatures, did have some positive outcomes.The media attention and the proceeding parliamentary debate raised awareness of the symptoms of the virus.What else are people doing to engage in the political process?The combined Government and Parliament e-petition system was launched in 2015, enabling any British citizen or UK resident to start or sign a petition. In its first year, it received over 23,000 petitions, of which just over 6,000 met the eligibility criteria. Bochel says that in addition to this, “viewings of Westminster Hall debates have gone up by 90%… so at least some elements of the public are engaged”.

An e-petition asking for a second EU referendum reached over 4m signatures (Toby Melville/PA)

Critics have coined the term “slacktivism” for the type of armchair action it takes to sign a petition, but others argue that raising awareness online is an important part of a wider process.According to the Hansard Audit of Political Engagement, 34% of those surveyed said they would create or sign an e-petition on a issue they felt strongly about, while 18% of people said they had actually done so in 2015.Of other political activities, 52% of those surveyed said they would contact their local councillor, MP, MSP or Welsh Assembly Member to voice their concerns, compared to 33% the year before. And 24% of people claimed to have donated to or paid membership fees for a charity or campaign organisation in 2015, showing that other forms of engagement are alive and well in British society.

Although it’s tempting to wonder why the Government doesn’t respond to petitions with large amounts of signatures, Bocher notes that our political system often does a lot of the work when it comes to making change.“Governments have limited time and resources, and in a representative democracy we elect people to make decisions (and we can vote against them if we are unhappy), so most ways of applying pressure are affected by the potential tension with the way that our democratic system works.”It’s clear we live in times where the internet gives us more opportunities than ever to get involved in changing the world around us. Whether that’s making a video and sharing it, signing a petition or getting out on the streets to protest, every little helps to raise awareness and pressure the Government.