LONDON: More than 2 million people have signed a petition calling for a second referendum, after a shock vote to pull Britain out of the EU, an official website showed Saturday. The website of the parliamentary petition at one point crashed due to the surge of people adding their names to the call for another nationwide poll following Thursday’s historic vote. “We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60 percent based (on) a turnout less than 75 percent there should be another referendum,” says the petition. The “Leave” camp won the support of 51.9 percent of voters, against 48.1 percent in favour of remaining in the European Union. Turnout for Thursday’s referendum was 72.2 percent. Signatories to the petition appeared to be mostly in Edinburgh and London, both of which voted heavily in favour of “Remain”. The petition – which only British citizens or UK residents have the right to sign – was proving so popular that by 1725 GMT on Saturday, 2,005,101 people had signed it. By late afternoon, it appeared to be rising at a rate of more than 3,000 signatures a minute. Most of those who signed were based in areas where support for staying in the EU was strongest, most especially London, the website indicated. There is no obligation in British legislation for referendums to have a minimum share of the vote or a minimum turnout, as in some other countries. But EU rules say nothing about a member state that has already begun negotiations to leave the bloc changing its mind and reversing that decision under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.