Brexit vote a cliffhanger
Voting that could rock global economy takes place Thursday, results early Friday
LONDON — Britain careened toward a historic choice Wednesday as voters heard final pitches on both sides of a bitterly fought referendum showdown that could rock the global economy and deeply unsettle the Western political order.
After months of campaigning that sharply divided the country over questions of immigration and identity, final polls showed Britons almost exactly split over whether the country should exit the 28-member European Union.
Voting takes place Thursday, and the results are expected early Friday.
Although “leave” had been leading the polls
recently, “remain” has caught up since pro-EU member of Parliament Jo Cox was fatally shot and stabbed last week, jolting the country and prompting calls for an end to some of the campaign’s more hateful rhetoric.
Speaking to a crowd of 9,000 in Trafalgar Square on what would have been Cox’s 42nd birthday, her husband, Brendan, said that Cox “feared the consequences of Europe dividing again” and urged people to follow her example.
The motive for the killing is unclear but the rare slaying of a politician cast a shadow over a divisive campaign that has been unusually heated, even by the lively standards of British politics.
The referendum marks an existential decision that could dramatically reshape Britain’s global role in a way not seen since London shed its empire after World War II. It could also lead to another push on Scottish secession, the further unraveling of the European Union and the fall of Prime Minister David Cameron’s government.
Advocates for a British exit — popularly known as Brexit — argue that tossing off the shackles of EU bureaucracy will restore Britain’s sovereignty. A powerful selling point for many votes is the claim that a farewell to EU ties could give the country the latitude to dramatically reduce immigration, which has hit record highs as Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and others from across Europe have flocked to the relative prosperity of the British economy.
“I really think tomorrow can be independence day,” former London Mayor Boris Johnson told supporters Wednesday as he posed for photos with fishmongers and waved copies of the virulently anti-EU Sun newspaper.
But opponents say a vote to leave could be a grievous self-inflicted wound from which it would take years, if not decades, for Britain to recover.
“We don’t solve our immigration challenge by leaving the European Union, but we do create a massive problem for our economy,” Cameron told the BBC on the eve of the vote. “This is irreversible. You can’t jump out of the airplane then climb back in through the cockpit hatch.”
Most economic, political and defense authorities — including nearly all foreign leaders — have joined the call for Britain to stay, and they have issued dire warnings about the consequences of Brexit.
Economic forecasters have said a British break could push the country back into recession, with the rest of the globe vulnerable to the ripples.
But many of the 46 million Britons eligible to vote have paid little heed, with surveys showing that anxiety over immigration is trumping all other voter concerns.
The “leave” campaign has played on those fears, arguing — with little supporting evidence — that Turkey will soon join the European Union and intensify the flood of migrant workers arriving on British shores under the bloc’s free-movement rules.
It has also dismissed warnings from independent experts as part of an elitist plot, what it terms “Project Fear.”
Two of the top Brexit campaigners — Johnson and Justice Secretary Michael Gove — have invoked provocative Nazi comparisons. Johnson has suggested that EU ambitions mirror those of Hitler’s Germany, and Gove has painted Brexit critics as akin to Nazi propagandists who sought to discredit Albert Einstein.
The “remain” side has returned fire in recent days.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan castigated the antiEU camp’s anti-immigrant message as “Project Hate.” Meanwhile, former prime minister John Major on Wednesday called Johnson and Gove, both fellow Conservatives, “grave diggers of our prosperity.”
Another former prime minister, Gordon Brown, decried the overall tone of a debate that has been marked by xenophobia and nativism. “This is not the Britain I know,” he said.