Creator of Huge Petition Is Left 'Shaking Like a Leaf'

The woman who created an incredibly successful anti-Brexit petition has left Britain—apparently fleeing for her life, the Guardian reports. Margaret Georgiadou, whose petition has over 5.2 million signatures Sunday, says she has endured a "torrent" of Facebook abuse and three phoned death threats that left her "shaking like a leaf." As she tweeted, "Who wants Brexit so much that they are prepared to kill for it?" Now she has shuttered her Facebook account and gone to Cyprus. "I feel terrible, I feel angry with myself because I thought I was tougher than that," she tells the BBC. "But I was scared. I haven't even told my husband because he is very old and he would become hysterical.”

Her petition aims to revoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which the UK invoked in March 2017 to leave the EU. "I want it to prove [Brexit] is no longer the will of the people," says the retired lecturer. "It was three years ago but the government has become infamous for changing their mind—so why can't the people?" Among criticisms of Georgiadou, social-media users are slamming posts she allegedly made threatening Prime Minister Theresa May (Georgiadou doesn't recall making them) and claiming overseas bots are adding petition signatures (96% are from British IP addresses, per the Guardian). Georgiadou's Cyprus trip kept her from protesting Brexit in a massive march Saturday, but she tells the Evening Standard that she wished marchers well. (More Brexit stories.)