40,000 sign petition for Shoah survivors to meet PM over Uyghur vote

Dorit Oliver Wolff and Ruth Barnett's plea to meet Boris Johnson over the Genocide Amendment has had almost 1,000 signatories an hour since its launch

A petition for two Holocaust survivors to meet the prime minister to discuss China’s persecution of its Uyghur minority is racking up almost 1,000 signatures every hour and could well hit 100,000 within the week.

By Saturday lunchtime, 48 hours after the petition was launched, more than 41,000 people had called for Boris Johnson to meet Dorit Oliver Wolff BEM and Ruth Barnett MBE, who are urging him to prioritise human rights over trade.

Wolff and Barnett are asking the PM to agree to an amendment to the Trade Bill which would allow senior judges to rule on whether a trading partner was committing genocide, with limits on bilateral business if it were. MPs have sought a compromise solution involving a Parliamentary Select Committee in the first instance.

The petitioners said: “The Genocide Amendment would allow the UK to break the international deadlock and recognise genocide whilst we still have time to prevent it.

“The government could then decide what action to take to ensure that we are not complicit by trading on preferential terms with genocidal states. This crucial amendment needs to be supported by all MPs if they truly mean ‘never again’.”

Organisers of the petition said Wolff and Barnett had been “taken aback by all of the support and comments on the petition from those in the Jewish community”, which has included praise from the children and grandchildren of survivors.

You can sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/boris-johnson-prime-minister-to-meet-with-holocaust-survivors-ahead-of-vote-on-the-genocide-amendment