Nearly 1.2 million people have so far signed a petition calling for the UK Parliament "not to be prorogued or dissolved" unless the UK withdrawal from the European Union has been cancelled or its deadline is delayed.
The petition was launched on the government's website by pro-EU campaigner Mark Johnston on Tuesday, a day before Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his request to suspend parliament.
The petition reached the 100,000 signatures mark, which guarantees it will be debated by lawmakers, merely hours after Johnson revealed his plan.
Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday approved Prime Minister Boris Johnson's request to suspend the British Parliament for five weeks from mid-September, shortening the time available to lawmakers to block a no-deal Brexit just weeks before the deadline of October 31.
The suspension will begin no sooner than Monday (September 9) and no later than Thursday (September 12) and last until October 14, a body of senior politicians who act as the Queen's official advisers, confirmed in a statement cited by CNN.
Notably, since coming to power in July, Johnson has vowed to pull the United Kingdom out of the European Union even if a withdrawal agreement is not secured.
The prime minister's decision to suspend the parliament has been met with criticism from other politicians. Particularly, the lower house speaker, John Bercow, who said it was aimed at preventing the parliament from debating Brexit and "performing its duty in shaping a course for the country."
Johnson became the prime minister in July after his predecessor, Theresa May, resigned over her failure to push the Brexit deal agreed upon by London and Brussels through the UK parliament. Meanwhile, the European Union refuses to renegotiate the agreement.
The United Kingdom was initially supposed to leave the European Union on March 29. However, the Brexit deadline was subsequently delayed until late October.
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