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Second EU Referendum Petition Reaches 3 Million Signatures

A petition calling for a second referendum on UK's membership of the EU has gained more than one million signatures following the vote to leave.

The referendum was held on Thursday.

The petition, calling for a second referendum on UK's membership of the EU, will be considered by Parliament as it has passed the required 100,000 threshold.

The UK voted to leave the EU by 52% to 48% in Thursday's referendum but the majority of voters in London, Scotland and Northern Ireland backed Remain. David Cameron said he would stand down as prime minister by October.

The petition, set up by William Oliver Healey, calls upon the UK Government to implement a rule that if the Remain or Leave vote is less than 60%, based on a turnout less than 75%, there should be another referendum.

Thursday saw a 72.2% turnout, significantly higher than the 66.1% turnout at last year's general election, but below the 75% mark suggested by Healey as a threshold.

The petition site temporarily went down following exceptionally high volumes of simultaneous users on a single petition, significantly higher than on any previous occasion.

The parliamentary petitions system is overseen by the Petitions Committee, which considers whether petitions that receive more than 100,000 signatures should be raised in the House of Commons and debated.

The committee is due to sit again on Tuesday.

In a separate petition more than 100,000 people have called on London Mayor Sadiq Khan to declare the English capital independent from the UK and apply to join the EU.