RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Starmer spent 4 years making an attempt to overturn the Brexit vote. So will he agree to a different election now greater than 2 MILLION Britons (and rising) have signed a petition demanding one?

More than 2 million people and counting have signed an online petition calling for an immediate General Election.

It was started by a West Midlands publican and has already passed the threshold at which it can be considered for debate in Parliament.

The petition on the Government website rightly accuses Labour of breaking promises made in the run-up to the last election in July.

Mike Westwood, landlord of the Waggon and Horses in Oldbury, claims to sell the cheapest beer in Britain, with pints of bitter and lager costing just £2.40.

But he now says his business is threatened by increases in employers’ National Insurance payments and the minimum wage announced in the recent smash-and-grab Budget.

The dark clouds looming over the hospitality industry make Storm Bert look like a minor squall. Mike Westwood’s warning is echoed on a far greater scale by Tim Martin, chairman of Wetherspoons, which is facing increased costs of £60 million a year. More pub closures will surely follow.

Mr Westwood said: ‘The British public feel like they have been betrayed with the promises that were told in the lead [up] to the election and then what has been delivered since – it looks nothing like what was promised.

‘I think people have had enough, they’ve seen what’s happened over in America as well, and I think that’s had a knock-on effect.’

You certainly don’t have to go far out of your way to encounter widespread buyer’s remorse, even among many of those who voted Labour.

The speed at which Starmer’s Government has unravelled is breath-taking. One by one, promises made on the stump have been junked.

Guarantees not to increase taxes on ‘working people’ have been smashed to smithereens. Working people will have to foot the bill for Labour’s profligacy and largesse towards their public sector client base.

Pensioners have been stripped of their £300 winter fuel allowances. Millions are facing higher energy bills and a long, cold winter because of Ed Miliband’s deranged dash to make Britain a ‘world leader’ in the Net Zero stakes.

Businesses, big and small, are warning of hiring freezes and job losses. Prices of everything are rising because of hikes to NI and the minimum wage. There’ll be no more cut-price pints for the regulars at the Waggon and Horses.

Discontent is everywhere, most visibly among farmers who marched on Westminster last week to protest about the vindictive imposition of inheritance tax on family farms.

Support for Labour is in freefall, a spectacular collapse for a Government elected just four months ago. The party is three points behind the shrivelled rump of a Conservative Party unceremoniously booted out of office after 14 largely wasted years, Brexit aside.

According to the latest opinion polling, 70 per cent of people now think things have actually got worse under Labour.

So don’t be surprised when millions more join the two million plus who have already signed the petition calling for a new General Election.

And this time not even Brenda from Bristol would object if Britain went back to the polls after such a short interval.

Not that it’s going to happen. Labour’s majority is so vast, thanks to the eccentricities of our electoral system, that it is unlikely even to be debated.

Yet were he true to form, Starmer should welcome another election. After all, he was the man who spent four years trying to overturn the result of the Brexit referendum.

Barely a week went by without Starmer complaining that the country had voted Leave on a false prospectus and demanding a second ‘People’s Vote’. He insisted that the 52 per cent in favour of quitting the EU was an insufficient majority.

So how can he possibly argue that the meagre 33.7 per cent of the electorate who voted Labour in July gives him carte blanche to slash-and-burn for the next five years?

The turnout was so low that Starmer only received the support of one-in-five of those eligible to vote. His 174-seat majority is built on sand, not to mention a false prospectus, with so-called Red Wall seats especially vulnerable.

Starmer knows it, which is why he will cling limpet-like to office until the last moment, unless or until a generational Black Wednesday-style financial crisis causes the Government to implode under the weight of its own incompetence. And with the latest swingeing cuts to the Armed Forces I would imagine a military coup is out of the question. They’d have trouble rustling up a concert party, let alone a battalion.

In 1997, at least the incoming Blair government could boast a popular Prime Minister and Cabinet of considerable talent. The class of 2024 are running the country like a bunch of sixth-form student activists, none more so than Martha Reeves, the work experience girl at the Treasury who managed to produce a Budget which makes Liz Truss look like Warren Buffet.

After just 150 days, this is already shaping up to be a one-term Government. Yesterday, on one of his brief State visits to Britain, Starmer dismissed the petition out of hand.

He even acknowledged that ‘very many people didn’t vote Labour [so] I’m not surprised many of them want a rerun. That isn’t how our system works.’

A second referendum on Brexit wasn’t how our system works, either, but that didn’t stop Starmer agitating for one.

Almost twice as many people voted for Brexit as voted Labour in July. Two-thirds of the country voted against Labour last time.

But as for the chances of another election any time soon, my guess is no earlier than July 2029.

Not even a Waggon and Horses will drag Starmer out before then.