IT IS a map which puts into stark contrast the likely voting intentions of those living in Scotland compared with England in tomorrow’s referendum on the European Union.
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The result represents a gain of one point for Leave, who are up to 45 per cent.
It comes as Brits prepare to vote on Britain’s membership to the 60-year old political and economic union tomorrow.
It was followed by a string of “Leave” votes across the north of England, including cities like Sheffield, that were expected to vote “Remain”.
“At this very early stage, the Leave side has done much better and even looks like the favourite to win the referendum”, BBC polling expert Prof John Curtice said.
YouGov’s 2014 Scottish referendum poll showed the campaign against independence winning with 54 per cent of the vote.
The result will be declared by Jenny Watson, the chairman of the Electoral Commission and the referendum’s chief counting officer at Manchester Town Hall.
The territory on Spain’s southern tip voted 95.9 per cent “Remain”, against just 4.09 per cent – 823 votes – for Brexit.
We’ll, now those scales have tipped back firmly in favour of LEAVE as the actual votes are being counted.
Their warning came on the last day of the four-month-long campaigning before polling booths open at 7 am local time tomorrow with the final result expected early on Friday. The leader of the ruling Conservative Party called the referendum largely to silence voices to his right, then staked his reputation on keeping Britain in the EU.
According to most public opinion polls released since pro-EU Labor MP Jo Cox was killed on Thursday, a late surge of support for Leave appears to have stalled with the result now too close to call confidently.
The narrowness of the polls is important because it shapes campaign strategy, media coverage, the financial markets and, possibly, voter behaviour.
Campaigns hope to do so, but I know people who are toying with voting Leave as they dislike how David Cameron has run the Referendum (and/or they just dislike David Cameron)… “That’s what we found in our [private] polling in the general election”.
Cameron, who has appeared alongside former Prime Minister John Major and former Labour leader Harriet Harman in Bristol, said that the decision will be irreversible and there will no coming back if the United Kingdom votes to leave. They told Mr Cameron: “We believe whatever the British people decide you have both a mandate and a duty to continue leading the nation implementing our policies”.
46,499,537 people eligible to vote yesterday.
Trading in stocks and currencies over the past week suggested investors were increasingly confident that Britain would remain in the EU.
The benchmark DJ Stoxx Europe 600 index closed up by 1.47% or 5.02 points to 346.34, while Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 both ended the day almost two percentage points higher, and London’s FTSE 100 was 1.23% higher, trading at two-month highs.
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Former London Mayor Boris Johnson and others on the “leave” side said Britain would be stronger and wealthier on its own.
