Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield queue row: Leeds residents react to petition to axe This Morning presenters

The presenting duo have been in the news recently after pictures emerged of them seemingly skipping the queue to see her late Majesty the Queen’s coffin as it lay in state.

Queues in London reached over 15-hours in length as members of the public queued for miles and through the night to bid a final farewell to Britain’s longest reigning monarch.

The supposed queue jumping came as retired footballer David Beckham was spotted queueing for hours.

The pair have denied queue jumping but angry fans have now started a petition to get the pair axed from their ITV show.

Many YEP readers have leaped to the defence of Willoughby and Schofield with many branding the petition a ‘witch hunt’.

Paula Longfield on Facebook said: “What is wrong with people, this is absolutely disgusting and is turning into a witch hunt, it's despicable behaviour and those signing should be utterly ashamed.”

Zoe Patterson said: “This is now Bulling. They didn’t commit a crime. This is awful what you are doing to them. They are good people. STOP.”

This Morning released a statement defending the actions of their presenters claiming they were there in a professional capacity.

Susan Obrien added: “Just let it go now. They have explained themselves and why it looked like queue jumping, if they was doing there job well fair enough. There is far more important issues in the world than this.”

This was echoed by Simon Jenkins who said: “If they were genuinely given press passes to view - and report on - the lying in state, then there's no issue with this.

“Having said that, I admire David Beckham for turning down the opportunity to bypass the crowd, and queuing himself.”

Many have praised the former England captain for his actions with one even calling for him to be knighted.

Jo Jeffery said: “Ridiculous- it wouldn’t have even made the news if the fabulous Mr Beckham hadn’t queued up.

"Let’s use our energy positively getting him a Knighthood rather than continuing this ridiculous bullying #bekind.”

The petition to get the pair axed has now passed a staggering 50,000 signatures with one reader calling for them to resign.

Jan Settle said: “They should definitely resign. BBC were live streaming it so there was no need for them to.

"They did jump the queue when there lots of people including some who were elderly or disabled who queued for hours.”

One reader, Jane Hughes, called out the pair’s PR team for their mishandling of the situation.

“The whole thing has been handled really badly. Whoever has been handling their PR has made a huge error in telling them to say they were there for the people who couldn’t be there when there was a live feed,” she said.

“This came across as patronising and fuelled the fire and its way out of control now.”

Deborah Bowden added: “Couldn’t care less, but I do believe that they were not reporting as no cameras were allowed in as there was a live stream by the BBC. They have no integrity.”