A confident former London Mayor Boris Johnson emerges from a polling station after voting to leave the EU. Johnson had been a very vocal advocate for the Leave campaign [Xinhua]
Some 52 per cent of British voters have chosen to leave the EU.
In the hours after the polls closed thousands of people in Britain, Scotland and Wales sat glued to their TV sets watching the results of Britain’s EU referendum pouring in.
Some took to the pubs, but left when the results hadn’t yet fully been declared.
Others, like contributing editor Russell Merryman, Tweeted they would break out the whisky and popcorn and watch what they said was an unraveling disaster.
All in all, months of tumultuous campaigning, divisive politics and electoral anxiety came to an end in the early hours of July 24 when it was announced that 52 per cent of the people had voted to leave the EU – or Brexit.
Earlier, the Sterling pound soared to its highest level in 2016 following a YouGov poll which indicated that the Remain vote would win.
But by 2am GMT the pound plunged to its weakest level in 31 years as it emerged that Britain’s Northeast had swung the vote in favor of leaving the EU.
With of 355 of 382 vote counting areas, or local government boroughs, already tallied – and 72 per cent voter turnout – the BBC forecast a win for the ‘Leave’ campaign.
There is likely to be political turmoil in the aftermath of the leave vote in the months ahead.
“A general election in the Autumn is not out of the question,” Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC.
Merryman says he expects Prime Minister David Cameron to resign soon.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
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