Historic British votes pointing to exit from EU

Countera begin to tally ballot papers at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK membership of the European Union, late Thursday June 23, 2016. On Thursday Britain votes in a national referendum on whether to stay inside the EU.
Countera begin to tally ballot papers at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as counting gets underway in the referendum on the UK membership of the European Union, late Thursday June 23, 2016. On Thursday Britain votes in a national referendum on whether to stay inside the EU.

LONDON-Sharp regional differences divided British voters and put the country's historic in-out European Union referendum on a knife-edge early Friday, with Leave ahead on 52 percent and Remain on 48 percent after 202 results from the 382 counting areas.

Most cities in northeastern England returned large majorities for Leave following Thursday's vote, while Scotland overwhelmingly voted for Remain.

Several areas of London also voted strongly for Remain, with 79 percent opting to stay in the EU in the city's southeastern borough of Lambeth, as national turnout averaged about 70 percent.

In contrast, the vote for Leave was 76 percent in Boston in eastern England, a market town with the country's highest proportion of eastern European migrants, according to a national census in 2011.

"I now dare to dream that the dawn is coming up on an independent United Kingdom," UK Independence Party, or UKIP, leader Nigel Farage said on Twitter after more than half of the votes had been declared.

The vote has raised fears that a win for a so-called Brexit could stoke anti-EU sentiment and spur calls for similar referendums across the EU, which could threaten to disintegrate the world's biggest economic bloc.

The mostly Conservative Vote Leave platform and the right-wing UKIP had lobbied for a Brexit, arguing that this was the only way to protect Britain's sovereignty and control EU migration.

Farage said the biggest effect from the British referendum was that other countries were starting to doubt the EU.

About 46.5 million people were registered to vote.

A YouGov survey of nearly 5,000 people who voted showed that among voters with a standard school education, 66 percent voted for a Brexit, while 71 percent of those with university degrees voted in favor of remaining in the EU.

The Remain camp has argued that an exit from the EU's common market would hurt the British economy and cost jobs, a view that is shared by other EU countries, as well as by leading economists around the world.

In addition, economists have warned that financial markets could be thrown into turmoil if Britons vote the EU's second-largest economy after Germany out of the bloc.

It would be the first time that a country decided to leave the EU.

Cameron, under pressure from those in his own Conservative party and a rising euroscepticism among British voters, had promised in 2013 to hold a referendum on EU membership.

He called the vote in February after negotiating a package of reforms with the bloc that he said gave Britain a "special status."

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