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EU referendum: pound plunges as first results point to Brexit – live EU referendum: pound plunges after strong Brexit vote leaves UK on knife-edge – live
(35 minutes later)
2.07am BST 2.43am BST
02:07 02:43
Steven Morris This is from the Independent’s John Rentoul.
Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, has said the leave vote – which is looking very strong in Wales – was an attack on the establishment. She also said that if the UK does leave the EU it could provide opportunities for Plaid, whose ultimate aim is independence for Wales. Barking & Dagenham Leave by 24 pts vs 8 pts expected; Hammersmith & Fulham Remain by 40 pts, 30 pts expected if 50-50 nationally
Speaking at the count in Cardiff, she told the Guardian: “It’s looking as though those areas where there are greatest areas of deprivation and poverty, those areas which are receiving the most amount of money from EU funds are the areas where people are voting in the greatest number to leave. 2.42am BST
“I’m of the view it’s austerity that is at the root of the problem here. People want change and they’ve seen this as an opportunity to get the change they want.” 02:42
Asked if a leave vote would boost Plaid’s aim of independence, Wood said it would provide an opportunity for the nationalists. “I’ve said all along it was in Wales’s best interest to stay in the European Union but you must always look for opportunities.” And this is from the academic Matthew Goodwin.
Leanne Wood suggests that a Leave vote in Wales would be a protest against austerity. https://t.co/WgtiyIAez8 On average we find that the Leave vote is up by about an average of 3 points on a 50-50 model #euref (so far!)
2.05am BST 2.42am BST
02:05 02:42
Leave is first to pass one million votes Josh Halliday
Claire Phipps We’re just over halfway through the north-east declarations and the verdict is clear: leave has won comfortably in this region.
The leave side was the first to break through the one-million vote mark – though remain was not far behind. The Brexiters were always expected to do well in this industrial heartland of shipping, mining and steel – but the sheer scale of the leave vote has stunned experts and activists.
With 34 authorities declared: Of the eight north-east areas to have declared so far, seven have voted heavily to leave the EU. In Hartlepool, the seaside town that saw a Ukip surge at the recent local elections, 69.5% voted to leave.
Some 16.8 million votes will be needed overall to secure victory, so it is still very early. But leave will be cheered by that symbolic moment. There are a further four areas to declare here – including Northumberland, Durham and Gateshead – but they are expected to be closer run than those that have already declared.
Related: EU referendum result: what we know so far North Tyneside is 53.4% LEAVEThat's seven out of eight North East local authorities to vote Leave. Four still to declare. #EURef
2.05am BST 2.40am BST
02:05 02:40
Leave have now got more than 1m votes, the BBC is reporting. This is from the Sunday Times’s Tim Shipman.
2.05am BST Vote Leave source: at current rate they're on course for 150,000 fewer votes in London than hoped. But will more than cover that elsewhere.
02:05 2.39am BST
Here are some more results. 02:39
Brentwood The academic Rob Ford has more on the Wandsworth result.
Remain 19,077 (40.85%) Leave 27,627 (59.15%) Leave maj 8,550 (18.31%) Electorate 58,777; Turnout 46,704 (79.46%) Wandsworth 75% remain - that's 9 points above what Remain wld need on 50-50 split, and turnout strong there too
Flintshire This vote suggests a very deeply divided country. London (& Scotland, other cities?) very different to everywhere else
Remain 37,867 (43.63%) Leave 48,930 (56.37%) Leave maj 11,063 (12.75%) Electorate 115,954; Turnout 86,797 (74.85%) 2.37am BST
Middlesbrough 02:37
Remain 21,181 (34.52%) Leave 40,177 (65.48%) Leave maj 18,996 (30.96%) Electorate 94,610; Turnout 61,358 (64.85%) Henry McDonald
Weymouth and Portland Two more Belfast constituencies have followed the west of the city in voting for remain. North and South Belfast backed an in vote, with the latter having a significant majority for Remain.
Remain 14,903 (38.96%) Leave 23,352 (61.04%) Leave maj 8,449 (22.09%) Electorate 50,441; Turnout 38,255 (75.84%) Belfast South results: 30,960 votes for Remain, 13,596 votes for Leave, 27 votes rejected. #EURefResults
Inverclyde Belfast North results: 20,128 votes for Remain, 19,844 votes for Leave, 26 votes rejected. #EURefResults
Remain 24,688 (63.80%) Leave 14,010 (36.20%) Remain maj 10,678 (27.59%) Electorate 58,624; Turnout 38,698 (66.01%) The result in East Belfast is surprising given that it is a 70% plus unionist constituency. There was only just over a 1,000-vote majority in favour of leaving the EU. Leave gained 21,918 votes compared to 20,278 for remain.
Renfrewshire East Belfast results: 20,728 for Remain, 21,918 votes to Leave, 19 votes rejected. #EURefResults
Remain 57,119 (64.81%) Leave 31,010 (35.19%) Remain maj 26,109 (29.63%) Electorate 127,290; Turnout 88,129 (69.23%) 2.33am BST
Midlothian 02:33
Remain 28,217 (62.06%) Leave 17,251 (37.94%) Remain maj 10,966 (24.12%) Electorate 66,757; Turnout 45,468 (68.11%) David Pegg
Merthyr Tydfil The Labour MP Emily Thornberry, speaking at the Islington count, has reacted to the early results.
Remain 12,574 (43.56%) Leave 16,291 (56.44%) Leave maj 3,717 (12.88%) Electorate 42,854; Turnout 28,865 (67.36%) “I think that whatever happens, about half the country has grave reservations,” she said. “We have to think about why that is. What we don’t want to do is not learn lessons from this.”
Stockton-on-Tees She said that while housing and public services were under strain, “these are all things that are in our power to do something about. And David Cameron ought to listen to that”.
Remain 38,433 (38.27%) Leave 61,982 (61.73%) Leave maj 23,549 (23.45%) Electorate 141,486; Turnout 100,415 (70.97%) Emily Thornberry at Islington count: "Whatever happens about half the country has very grave reservations." pic.twitter.com/mHSf2Z0gdx
2.04am BST 2.33am BST
02:04 02:33
Westminster has voted to remain: The Wandsworth results are in.
Remain: 118,463 (75%)
Leave: 39,421 (25%)
Wandsworth is one of the most pro-remain areas in the country, but the remain lead here is even bigger than the Hanretty figures suggested it would be.
UpdatedUpdated
at 2.08am BST at 2.35am BST
2.02am BST 2.29am BST
02:02 02:29
The Remain camp’s lead in the results so far seems to have filtered through to Japan. After early gains the Nikkei 225 has slipped into negative territory, down 0.38%. Chris Hanretty, on his University of East Anglia blog, has updated his forecast. Based on 33 results in, he expects leave to win by five points.
And in the US, the S&P 500 is currently forecast to open down around 0.8%. This is a big update, and I’m conscious that I may have made a terrible mistake somewhere in estimating differential turnout, but here goes:
Predicted probability of Britain remaining: 0.03
(33 of 382 areas reporting.)
Predicted vote share for remain: 47.5%.
(90% prediction interval: 45.5-49.6%)
UpdatedUpdated
at 2.07am BST at 2.30am BST
1.56am BST 2.28am BST
01:56 02:28
Basildon in Essex votes to leave the EU: Here is Glasgow’s announcement that the city voted for remain, a much-needed result for the remain side:
1.56am BST As well as the announcement from Falkirk:
01:56
Labour is also blaming the SNP for remain’s relative lack of success. This is from a party source.
Turnout in Scotland has been considerably lower than expected. The SNP, the dominant party which ran huge campaigns for the independence referendum, UK election and Scottish elections, has run a lacklustre campaign with minimal ground activity.
Sturgeon had more to say about criticising the remain camp than making the positive case for Europe and she was nowhere to be seen until the dying days of the campaign.
UpdatedUpdated
at 2.04am BST at 2.35am BST
1.56am BST 2.28am BST
01:56 02:28
The Ukip MEP David Coburn was in an optimistic mood in Glasgow, saying “it’ll be Ukip what won it” if leave comes out as victorious. Here’s more from Ladbrokes on leave now being favourite to win the referendum. The bookmaker has leave at 1/2 and remain at 6/4.
Matthew Shaddick, head of political betting at Ladbrokes, said: “We are seeing huge sums of money coming in for leave on the back of consistently better than expected results. There is a long way to go, but the trend thus far is only going one way. London will be key in the eventual outcome and the remain camp needs a better than expected result on a better than expected turnout.”
Meanwhile, markets continue to slide, with the FTSE 100 now forecast to open down around 6%:
Futures market predicting a massive selloff -- FTSE 100 being called down 6% pic.twitter.com/QhtxxuhyCk
Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX Capital, said:
“Stocks and sterling are whipsawing around as markets are starting to price in a Brexit. The pound is swinging around and FTSE futures are trading down at present. Gold is rallying strongly on safe haven demand.
“We can expect to see these gyrations continue throughout the night as traders react to the referendum results as they come in. We’re not seeing a panic just yet but the complacency has definitely gone.”
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.58am BST at 2.32am BST
1.52am BST 2.24am BST
01:52 02:24
1.52am BST We’ve got 42 results in now, out of 382.
01:52 Here are the numbers. It is the votes that count.
And the Basildon result is in. Areas
Leave: 67,251 (68.6%) Remain: 17
Remain: 30,748 (31.4%) Leave: 25
But leave were expected to do well here. According to the Hanretty chart, it is the 13th most pro-Brexit place in the UK. Votes
1.51am BST Remain: 1,145,433 (46.3%)
01:51 Leave: 1,326,686 (53.7%)
Josh Halliday 42 #EUref results in so far -Glastonbury 1,145,433 (46.3%) / Last Night of the Proms 1,326,686 (53.7%)
Bridget Phillipson, the Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, said she knew the pro-EU campaign faced an uphill struggle in the north-east: “There’s huge anger that time and again our region is left behind when it comes to jobs and investment. We don’t get what we need from the Tory government – people feel like they continue to be kicked. 2.23am BST
“The reason I campaigned so strongly for remain is that I believe our region will be the hardest hit if we leave the European Union.” 02:23
Bridget Phillipson MP on Sunderland #EUref vote https://t.co/xj1RE9kafq via @audioBoom The Guardian’s data team have this about each side’s contribution to the overall result:
Richard Elvin, the ex-Ukip councillor who coordinated the Vote Leave campaign in Sunderland, said he was “absolutely elated” at the result and that it would have “huge consequences” for Labour in the north-east. Leave has a lead of 4% in the 41 areas that have reported results so far. The biggest contributor to the leave result overall has been Sunderland, with 6.3% of the leave vote. Meanwhile, the biggest contributor to remain has been Newcastle with 5.8% of the remain vote.
“Voters made a big statement saying we’re sick to death of politics as it is. Sick to death of being told what’s good for us. It could change the political landscape,” he said. The places to watch that are expected to report in the next hour are Castle Point, which is anticipated to lean towards leave, and Crawley in West Sussex which is a general election bellwether and the split between leave and remain should be telling. After 3am we can expect large London areas Camden and Islington to report, which are predicted to lean heavily towards remain.
Elvin, a former Ukip parliamentary candidate, said the result showed Labour’s three pro-EU Sunderland MPs as “completely out of touch with the electorate”. 2.19am BST
Julie Elliott, the Labour MP for Sunderland South, said the strength of the leave vote in the city “highlights the disparity of feeling around the country” between strongly Eurosceptic areas and pro-EU regions. 02:19
“Some people are feeling really vulnerable at the moment and the north-east is being really hard hit by the cuts – massive, massive cuts to the local authorities, health services and people are feeling very, very vulnerable,” she said. Libby Brooks
A Labour source’s claim that the SNP was to blame for low turnout in Scotland was swiftly thrown into doubt on Twitter by none other than the former Labour first minister Jack McConnell.
@bbclaurak Presumably a source who spent the campaign in London.
When I interviewed the current first minister and SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, earlier in the week, I put it to her that her party’s campaign has been lacklustre and certainly far less energetic than other campaigns of recent years.
She responded: “I don’t think it’s the case that we’re doing less than other parties but I had this conversation with UK government politicians at the time they were deciding the date of the referendum and I know there were similar concerns raised by the Welsh government.
“Up until 5 May we were absolutely focused on a Scottish election and there was always going to be a difficulty in bringing activists who exhaust themselves in an election campaign out of that immediately into another campaign with exactly the same intensity.”
In terms of Scottish government campaigning, she noted that there were five working days between her being confirmed as first minster and EU referendum purdah beginning, adding: “There have been some very practical constraints placed on us.”
2.19am BST
02:19
Leave on course for 12-point lead, Sky predicts
Professor Michael Thrasher, the Sky News number cruncher, says that as things stand it looks as if leave is heading for a 12-point lead.
Prof Michael Thrasher preliminary forecast as things stand for @skynews:Leave 56%Remain 44%
UpdatedUpdated
at 2.03am BST at 2.32am BST
1.47am BST
01:47
The Hartlepool result is in, and leave got 70% - more than expected. This is from the academic Caitlin Milazzo.
Hartlepool - Forecast #Brexit vote 61% ,UKIP 2014 EP vote 39%, Actual vote share 70% #EURef
1.44am BST
01:44
Perhaps Lindsay Lohan has been one of those using Google. (See 1.43pm.)
#REMAIN Sorry, but #KETTERING where are you&why is this woman @BBCNews speaking on people rather than TELLING us what happens if UK LEAVES?