A huge petition calling for a new EU referendum has no chance of reversing this week's historic vote to leave, Britain's foremost elections expert has said.
Professor John Curtice, whose exit poll was the only one to predict the Conservatives would win last year's general election, said the subject was so divisive within mainstream political parties and their supporters that it would be unlikely to form a campaigning issue for some time - let alone spark another public vote.
Thursday's referendum saw 17.4 million (51.9%) votes cast to leave the EU, compared with 16.1 million (48.1%) for remaining part of the bloc, with a turnout of 72.2%, according to the Electoral Commission.
In response, more than a million people have signed an online petition calling for the Government to implement a rule that "if the Remain or Leave vote is less than 60% based on a turnout less than 75%, there should be another referendum".
The petition passed the seven-figure landmark just over 24 hours after the referendum result was confirmed.
Prof Curtice told the Press Association: "How many people voted in favour of Leave? Seventeen million. One million is chicken feed by comparison.
It has passed the 100,000 mark for it to be debated in Parliament. All that means is that some MPs will say, 'It's a terrible shame', others will say, 'Hallelujah'. Then that's the end of it
"It's no good people signing the petition now, they should have done it before. Even then, these petitions don't always mean a great deal.
"It has passed the 100,000 mark for it to be debated in Parliament. All that means is that some MPs will say, 'It's a terrible shame', others will say, 'Hallelujah'. Then that's the end of it."
The clamour to add signatures to the Government website-hosted petition comes amid dissatisfaction from voters who wanted the country to remain part of the union while anecdotes began to emerge from those who said they regretted voting to leave.
The poll resulted in David Cameron announcing his resignation as Prime Minister while the pound slumped to its weakest level for three decades.
Prof Curtice said: "Mainstream political parties have been divided on Europe. The parties' supporters have been divided. Nobody is going to want to campaign prominently on this."
The professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde added: "If Boris Johnson is running the Government and it (disengagement from the EU) is taking a long time to be implemented, two years down the line we could have another poll showing people actually want to reverse the decision and remain in.
"Then there could be a situation where the opposition party in a general election have a mandate to hold a new referendum on it."
More than 130,000 people have signed a separate petition on the Change.org website, calling on new London mayor Sadiq Khan to declare the capital independent from the UK and apply to join the European Union.
Less well-supported petitions on the Change.org website include a similar plea for Brighton and Hove to become a member state of the EU, calls for Leave firebrand Nigel Farage to be knighted, and another entitled "Stop all petitions trying to make us hold another referendum".