Leave camp pessimistic as polls point to UK staying in EU

BRITONS APPEAR to have voted in a referendum to stay in the European Union, opinion polls showed on Thursday, and prominent ‘Brexit’ campaigners acknowledged they looked likely to lose.

Nigel Farage, head of the UK Independence Party and a leading voice in favour of leaving the EU, told Sky News: “It’s been an extraordinary referendum campaign, turnout looks to be exceptionally high and looks like Remain will edge it.”

Farage said his prediction was based on “what I know from some of my friends in the financial markets who have done some big polling”. Government minister Theresa Villiers, who also campaigned for Britain to leave, told Sky News her instinct was that the Remain side had won.

A vote to stay would come as a massive relief to Britain’s 27 EU partners, who had feared the departure of the bloc’s second biggest economy would weaken Europe’s global clout and fuel the rise of eurosceptic movements in other countries.

Before a single result had emerged from the 382 local counting areas, a survey by pollster YouGov showed Remain ahead by a margin of 52 to 48 percent. Unlike a classic exit poll, it was based on online responses by a pre-selected sample of people rather than a survey of voters as they left polling stations.

Pollster Ipsos-MORI also put Remain in the lead, saying that surveys it had carried out on Wednesday and Thursday gave it a 54-46 margin of victory. An Ipsos-MORI poll published earlier had just a 52-48 split for Remain.

The pound climbed to its highest for this year, rising above $1.50, up almost 1 percent on the day GBP=D4, though it later eased back to around 1.4950.

“It’s early days and there will be twists and turns through the early hours of this morning but, for now, the markets have taken that YouGov poll as a strong indication that the Remain camp has won,” said Jeremy Cook, chief economist at international payments company World First in London.

In the first result officially declared, the British overseas territory of Gibraltar bordering Spain voted overwhelmingly in favour of Remain, as widely expected.

The four-month campaign has sharply polarised the nation and the final outcome of the vote could change the face of Europe.

If Britain becomes the first state to leave the EU, the so-called Brexit would be the biggest blow to the 28-nation bloc since its foundation.

The EU would be stripped of its leading free-market advocate and one of its two main military powers, and could face calls for similar votes by anti-EU politicians in other countries.

Ralph Brinkhaus, a senior ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and deputy parliamentary floor leader for her conservatives in the Bundestag, told Reuters: “The released polls show the expected neck-and-neck race. It will remain exciting until the early morning hours. I hope that the British have decided against a Brexit.”

If it votes to stay, Britain has been promised a special status exempting it from any further political integration, but European leaders will still have to address a sharp rise in euroscepticism across the continent.

A Brexit vote would also deal a potentially fatal blow to the career of Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum and campaigned for the country to stay in, against a Leave camp led by rivals from within his own Conservative Party.

“Thank you everyone who voted to keep Britain stronger, safer and better off in Europe – and to the thousands of Remain campaigners around the UK,” Cameron said on Facebook.

In a letter, 84 eurosceptic Conservative lawmakers called on Cameron to remain prime minister regardless of the result. It marked the first attempt to heal the deep rifts that have opened up in the ruling party since the start of the campaign.

The signatories included prominent Leave campaigners Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, and Michael Gove, a cabinet minister and personal friend of Cameron.

But despite the statement of loyalty, Cameron would face huge pressure from the country at large to step down as prime minister if Britons have defied him and voted to leave.-Reuters

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