Sign the petition?

E-democracy

Well, the BBC tells us that Downing Street has an e-petition web page.

I thought, in the interest of experiment I'd take a look - and I found one worth giving ten seconds to support:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by not replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system.

Submitted by Dr. Benedict Young of Individual – Deadline to sign up by:17 February 2007 – Signatures: 83

Which states:

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the greatest defense humanity has against a world in which many countries seek to acquire nuclear weapons, and in which the probability of nuclear accidents and even nuclear terrorism is unacceptably high.

However, this treaty is greatly under threat. Kofi Annan has said: "If we want to avoid a cascade of nuclear proliferation, we need a major international effort to strengthen the regime before it is too late."

The UK could lead this international effort. To do so, we would have to renounce our nuclear weapons system, Trident.

This would be an historic decision; it would rank among the few truly moral actions ever carried out by a nation-state; and it would give the UK the moral standing needed to champion the Treaty and help turn the world back from possible catastrophe.

This petition therefore calls on the Prime Minister not to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system, and so to champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

So, here's the deal - why not sign it? If you're a UK citizen, it doesn't hurt - put it on your blog - just this once, to see if e-democracy can begin to have any sort of impact. I know that politicians wipe their arses on petitions, but hey, it's an experiment - what if it got to a couple of hundred thousand?

Put the link on your webnsite and ask around Trident Petition