article: Millions of people have "signed" online petitions calling on Parliament to do everything from bring in rules for a second EU referendum to introducing a Meningitis B vaccine for all children. Sorry, your browser cannot display this content. Enter your postcode or parliamentary constituency: BBC England's data unit found there were 17 parts of the UK where the number of people taking part was consistently higher than elsewhere. Eight of the 17 were London constituencies. All but two have Labour MPs. The constituencies, and the party of their MP, were: Some critics of petitions suggest they are in danger of becoming symbols of protest rather than effective instruments of change. Stephen Coleman, professor of political communication at the University of Leeds, said: "We should be very concerned about how representative these petitions are. "If they are only empowering the usual people who vote and participate in other ways, they will exacerbate the gap between the political efficacy of the already active and the limited influence of the least confident." But Darren Hughes, deputy chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said petitions were an effective way of engaging with people who would not normally be interested in politics. "The more ways to engage the better, and while there always going to be places that sign petitions more than others, that's normal, and millions of people are using this tool right across the county," he said. "What would be a positive change would be for these petitions to encourage some further engagement - if the site asked them to register to vote, get more involved in politics, and follow more closely the work of Parliament." We focussed on the top ten most popular petitions. The same 17 constituencies were in the top 10% of signatures in six of the most popular petitions since Parliament launched a website in July 2015. Where they were not in the top 10, it was mainly because the other petitions were calling for the opposite of the other petitions they had signed. For the most popular Parliament petition of all time, calling for a second referendum on leaving the European Union, 17 of the 65 constituencies that signed it the most were also in the top 10% for: We excluded an earlier petition demanding Donald Trump be banned from visiting the UK altogether and another petition about Jeremy Hunt as the issues were too similar to others. 100,000 signatures for MPs to consider a debate in Parliament 10,000 signatures for the government to formally respond 11 MPs on the Petitions Committee 6 months is how long petitions stay open for signatures Only British citizens or UK residents are allowed to sign However, they were not in the top 10% for petitions calling for: Taking the most popular petitions, Brighton Pavilion, represented by Green MP Caroline Lucas, has the highest median rate of signatures as a % of its population. BBC News found no correlation between the proportion of people signing petitions and turnout in the 2015 General Election. Northern Ireland constituencies made up the majority of the 10
summary: MPs will later debate two petitions about the state visit of US President Donald Trump, but what do online polls and their signatories say about the UK?