Somewhat surprisingly, the EU Referendum in the UK yesterday, 23rd June 2016, has resulted in a narrow but decisive vote to 'Leave'. Although this is the result I favoured, so am pleased, it has still somewhat surprised me. In due course, quite possibly after a change in leadership of the Conservative Party, as the Prime Minister David Cameron announced this morning that he plans to step down as Leader and therefore as Prime Minister in the expectation that a new Conservative Party leader will be in place for the Autumn Conservative Party conference, to be held this year between 2-5 October in Birmingham, the country's departure from the EU will formally be triggered under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which generally provides for a 2-year period for negotiations by a country wishing to leave, although this period may be extended by mutual agreement.
Full details of the results are available via the BBC EU Referendum microsite here - as mentioned above, the overall result was quite narrow (Leave - 51.9%; Remain - 48.1%) on a turnout of 72.2%.
Within the UK as a whole, the following regional results were declared:
England and Wales both voted to 'Leave':
- England (Leave - 53.4%; Remain - 46.6%; Turnout - 73%)
- Wales (Leave - 52.5%; Remain - 47.5%; Turnout - 71.7%)
Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted to 'Remain':
- Scotland (Leave - 38%; Remain - 62%; Turnout - 67.2%)
- Northern Ireland (Leave - 44.2%; Remain - 55.8%; Turnout - 62.9%)
The only other matter of particular interest is that within England, much of London voted to 'Remain', along with Scotland and Northern Ireland this was insufficient to outweigh the 'Leave' majorities in much of the rest of England and in Wales. In some parts of London, the results were fairly close, but in other boroughs 'Remain' had considerably more votes than 'Leave'
You can find more detailed infrmation about specific areas in the BBC microsite linked above.
It will take a little while to see how this development is going to play out in various ways over the next couple of years. I am cautiously optimistic, overall.
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