BRITAIN
VOTES TO LEAVE EU
In
a crushing blow to David Cameron, Leave defeats Remain in Brexit
referendum.
By PAUL DALLISON
6/24/16, 5:44 AM CET Updated 6/24/16, 6:55 AM CET
The United Kingdom
voted to leave the European Union in a referendum Thursday.
By 5:45 a.m Friday,
all of Britain’s major broadcasters had called it for Leave as it
became clear that the Remain camp could no longer secure enough votes
to win. The forecast with most of the results in is for 52 percent
Leave and 48 percent Remain.
Although Scotland
and London backed Remain, Wales and the north of England were
strongly Leave, and once the anti-EU camp got its nose in front, it
stayed ahead.
The pound fell to
its lowest level against the dollar since 1985 as markets reacted to
the news.
After conceding
defeat at 10 p.m Thursday, Nigel Farage declared victory at just
after 4.05 a.m.
He said he hoped the
result “brings down this failed project.” The UKIP leader said:
“Ladies and gentleman, dare to dream that a dawn is breaking on an
independent, United Kingdom. If the predictions now are right, this
will be a victory for real people, for ordinary people, for decent
people. We’ve fought against the multi-nationals. We fought against
lies and deceit.”
Many Labour MPs were
distraught. “It’s a terrible day for Britain and a terrible day
for Europe,” said Keith Vaz, the chair of the home affairs select
committee.
Turnout was high, at
71.8 percent, with almost 30 million people voting.
Two on-the-day polls
had Remain ahead. YouGov gave Remain 52 percent and Leave 48 percent,
and Ipsos/MORI put Remain on 54 percent and Leave on 46 percent.
Those polls came out shortly after voting closed at 10 p.m local
time. There was little cheer for Remain from then on.
As predicted,
Scotland and London were the shining lights for the Remain camp, but
turnout in those areas was not as high as in many of the areas that
voted Leave. The anti-EU votes were highest in the northeast of
England and in Wales — the former was expected, the latter was not.
The first
declaration came from Gibraltar, where turnout was 84 percent. It
was, as expected, a big win for Remain, with 19,322 votes to stay in
the EU, and 823 votes to Leave.
The first English
result came from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which was just in favor of
Remain, with 65,404 votes to 63,598 for Leave. Experts had predicted
a much larger victory for Remain.
Shortly after,
Sunderland declared. Always likely to be a strong Leave vote, the gap
was wider than expected, with Leave on 82,394 votes and Remain on
51,930.
Signs to leave the
EU are attached to windows and a balcony of a block of flats in Hove
near Brighton, southern England, on June 23, 2016
The two English
results played havoc with the financial markets, sending sterling
plummeting. It fell 6 percent on the back of the Newcastle and
Sunderland results, a fall described by the BBC as not seen since the
financial crisis in 2008.
Senior Leave
campaigners, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, released a
letter late Thursday calling on David Cameron to stay on as prime
minister irrespective of the result.
The U.K. remains a
member of the EU until it has negotiated its exit.
The fallout was
immediate. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the vote
“makes clear that the people of Scotland see their future as part
of the European Union.” All 32 local authority areas returned
majorities for Remain.
Although Northern
Ireland voted in favor of Remain, Irish republican party Sinn Fein
said Britain “has forfeited any mandate to represent economic or
political interests of people in N. Ireland.”
One simple question
British voters faced
a single question Thursday: “Should the United Kingdom remain a
member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
There were two boxes
on the ballot paper, “Remain” and “Leave.”
A record 46,499,537
people were entitled to take part, according to figures from the
Electoral Commission.
The vote capped
months of political drama, intrigue and surprises. It started off
calmly enough but soon became nasty, so nasty that it took a tragic
event — the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox — to alter the course of
the fight, forcing a halt to the campaigns and a softening of the
rhetoric.
The library in
Birstall, West Yorkshire, where Cox was shot and stabbed, was being
used as a polling station Thursday and hosted a lunchtime vigil for
the murdered politician.
In London, two
polling stations had to be moved as the equivalent of a month’s
worth of rain fell through the night into Thursday morning. The rain
did not appear to have deterred voters, many of whom faced long waits
to cast their ballot.
This was only the
third nationwide referendum in British history. The last one took
place five years ago, when voters rejected an attempt to change the
way MPs are elected. The first one was in 1975, when voters were
asked if the U.K. should continue to be a member of what was then the
European Economic Community.
Authors:
Paul Dallison
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário