The Remain camp has said a British exit would be hugely destabilising, but supporters of the Leave campaign argue it would all be for the best.
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Brisk voting marked polling day yesterday as the results remained too close to call till the very last minute.
Meanwhile, an online poll conducted by YouGov between 20 June and 22 June showed Remain on 51 per cent, and Leave on 49 per cent.
At 03:45 BST Leave were ahead by over 500,000 votes, with the English shires and Wales voting strongly for Brexit.
According to Prof Curtice, the Remain vote is about 10% short of what was expected in north-east England and although Remain is ahead in Scotland, turnout is lower than in the rest of the UK.
How did the Leave camp clinch victory in the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union after what was a very closely fought contest?
Results will be declared throughout the night, and the final result will be officially declared at Manchester Town Hall, probably around breakfast time on Friday.
“Remain are on 52% with Leave on 48%”.
The final YouGov poll was wrong about the overall result, predicting a Remain victory, but the result did follow a trend of showing young voters back Remain.
Nerves are frayed on both sides of the European Union referendum campaign, with neither side confident of victory despite the Remain camp jumping slightly ahead of Leave, according to phone polls a day before the vote.
Sinn Féin has said the result has means there is a case for a border poll, claiming the British government has “forfeited any mandate to represent economic or political interests of people in N Ireland”.
The Telegraph notes the three British regions that voted to stay in the European Union had some of the lowest turnout.
Orkney Islands voted to remain as 7,189 people voted to stay and 4,193 voted to leave.
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Polls had for months suggested a close battle, although the past few days have seen some indication of momentum swinging toward the “remain” side. This joins polls released late on Wednesday that pushed the pound higher.
