![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/e0ff\/live\/cd6a79d0-acda-11ef-92c5-85d8a8f7d550.jpg.webp\")
Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nMPs will debate an online petition calling for a re-run of July’s general election, after it garnered over 2.7 million signatures.<\/p>\n
A debate has been scheduled in Westminster Hall, a secondary debating chamber where such petitions are discussed, on 6 January.<\/p>\n
It has become the third most popular e-petition since 2010, easily surpassing the 100,000 signatures required for a debate to take place.<\/p>\n
It will not lead to another election – but was used by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to taunt Sir Keir Starmer during Prime Minister’s Questions.<\/p>\n
Badenoch said it showed “two million people asking him to go” after Labour’s first Budget since 2010, as the pair clashed over the government’s tax rises.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sir Keir shrugged off her attack, saying July’s election – where Labour won 411 Commons seats and 9.7m votes – had been a “massive petition” in itself.<\/p>\n
The petition, started by a West Midlands publican who voted Conservative at July’s general election, accuses Labour of reneging on its pre-election promises. <\/p>\n
It was set up last week and has since been promoted by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and tech billionaire Elon Musk.<\/p>\n
The Petitions Committee – which was set up in 2015 to review petitions on Parliament’s website – has confirmed it will be debated on Monday 6 January.<\/p>\n
The debate will be opened by Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone, who chairs the committee, and the government will send a minister to respond.<\/p>\n
There will not be a vote at the end of the debate, although the government will have to issue a written response because the petition received over 10,000 signatures. <\/p>\n
The petition offered Badenoch a way to attack the government at Prime Minister’s Questions, as she faced off with Sir Keir for only the third time since becoming Tory leader earlier this month.<\/p>\n
She added that rises to employers’ National Insurance (NI) at last month’s Budget had prompted calls from business that they would have to cut jobs.<\/p>\n
The tax increase was not in Labour’s election manifesto, but ministers claim it is needed to fill a “black hole” in the public finances left by the previous government, and raise money for public services.<\/p>\n
“There’s a petition out there, two million people asking him to go,” she told MPs.<\/p>\n
“He’s the one who doesn’t know how things work. It is not government that creates growth, it is business,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The PM replied: “She talks about a petition, we had a massive petition on the 4th of July in this country. <\/p>\n “We spent years taking our party from a party of protest to a party of government, they are hurtling in the opposite direction.”<\/p>\n