The petition on the website of the British Parliament to cancel Brexit by revoking Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty has surpassed the milestone of 6 million signatures on Sunday, two days after the originally set Brexit date of March 29, 2019.

Of the more than 6 million signatures collected already, 96% are reported to come from within the United Kingdom, and the rest are from British expats living abroad – in spite of conspiracy theories claiming the number is being swollen by bots.

The Cancel Brexit petition quickly made global headlines after its launch some 10 days ago as it hit the 3 and 4 million marks rather swiftly, with its author, 77-year-old former lecturer Margaret Georgiadou, receiving death threats and getting vehemently harassed on social media.

The rate at which the anti-Brexit petition was attracting new signatories, however, slowed down substantially over the past week.

Nonetheless, the petition to cancel Brexit has helped reinvigorate the campaign for holding a second Brexit referendum in the UK, alongside last weekend’s People’s Vote March in London attended by over 1 million demonstrators.

The “Cancel Brexit” petition has become the most popular petition ever on the website of the British Parliament, surpassing a 2016 petition that got 4,150,260 signatures urging a second Brexit referendum if the result of the initial one (held on June 23, 2016) was not definitive enough.

The British Parliament is due to debate the petition to cancel Brexit on Monday, as it is supposed to do with any petition on its website that amasses more than 100,000 signatures.

On March 26, however, the British government weighed on the petition in by saying it was not going to revoke Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty.

“We will honor the result of the 2016 referendum and work with parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European Union,” British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Cabinet said back then.

In the meantime, however, May’s embattled Brexit deal with the European Union got defeated by the British MPs for the third time, albeit by a smaller margin.

At about the time the petition to cancel Brexit was launched, the EU 27 leaders agreed to delay Brexit, in response to May’s request, until May 22 if the British Parliament approves the Brexit deal or until April 12 if it fails to do so.

The British leader is going to return to Brussels for an emergency summit of the European Council on April 10 when she might ask the leaders of the EU 27 for a longer delay on Brexit.

(Banner image: Petitions website of British Parliament)