UK votes Leave

Out campaign leads by one million votes Scotland's future in UK back on the agenda

BRITAIN has voted to withdraw from the European Union with Scotland and London backing Remain but large swathes of England and Wales opting for Leave.

As dawn broke today, the campaign to remove the UK from the EU was ahead by almost one million votes after a see-saw night, which saw fortunes swinging one way and then another.

Scotland’s future within the United Kingdom is now back on the political agenda after it voted overwhelmingly for Remain.

Alex Salmond, the former First Minister, said: “Every single area [in Scotland] has voted to remain. We have got a united country in Scotland which wants to be a part of Europe. The [SNP] manifesto said that if Scotland was dragged out of Europe against the will of its people then the Scottish Parliament would have the right to hold another referendum.”

The markets were expected to see a day of turmoil with billions of pounds wiped off the value of shares and the pound plunging as investors take fright at the implications for the British economy. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, has warned that the prospect of Brexit could cause a recession as growth is hit and inflation rises.

Ukip’s leader Nigel Farage was jubilant, declaring: “I now dare to dream that the dawn is coming up on an independent United Kingdom.”

The anti-EU MEP told cheering supporters at a Leave.EU campaign party in London that June 23 should go down in history as “our independence day”. He later said David Cameron should resign “immediately” as Prime Minister if Brexit won what was still expected to be a knife-edge vote.

Mr Cameron’s future and that of his chancellor George Osborne now hang in the balance.

While more than 80 Brexit Tories penned a letter to the Prime Minister, saying he had “a duty” to stay on in Downing Street whatever the result, insiders at Westminster suggested, with his authority shattered, Mr Cameron could announce his resignation today. Question-marks have also been raised about Mr Osborne’s future, given that he had tied himself so firmly to the Remain cause.

Mass expulsions of EU nationals living in the UK are highly unlikely but Brexit may make people moving to the UK from EU countries considerably harder,until such an agreement could be negotiated with the EU.

From early on, Scotland showed solid support for Britain remaining in the EU.

The night began with a YouGov snapshot, published as the polls closed, which gave Remain a 52 to 48 lead over Leave.

The In campaign was buoyed and Brexit figures were within the first hour pointing to a defeat for their campaign. Around 11pm, Mr Farage suggested it looked as though Remain had “edged it”.

But as the results came in, it seemed clear that the Out camp had got its vote out in higher numbers than the In camp. At around 2am, for the first time the bookies said the odds were pointing to a Brexit victory. By 5am, Leave seemed to have an unassailable position, ahead by almost one million votes.

On the markets, sterling fell sharply in response to fears that Britain could be about to vote to quit the Brussels bloc after 43 years, losing three per cent within moments of the early result that saw Sunderland vote strongly for Leave.

Recriminations began to break out in the Remain camp. A war of words erupted between Labour and the SNP over who was to blame if the referendum went to Leave.

After a Labour source suggested to BBC News that the Scottish Nationalists had not campaigned hard enough in Glasgow or Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “Labour has lost it. Scotland voting strongly Remain, Labour areas in Eng/Wales going Leave - but still all SNP fault.”

By 4.30am with Leave more than 700,000 votes ahead, the Ukip leader was all but giving a victory speech.

“We fought against the multinationals, we fought against the big merchant banks, we fought against big politics, we fought against lies, corruption and deceit, and today, honesty, decency and belief in nation I think now is going to win,” Mr Farage told his supporters.

Meanwhile, Labour faced bitter recriminations after swathes of voters in its heartlands rejected pleas to Remain.