Millions of United Kingdom citizen took to over 46,000 polling stations around the region yesterday to the decide the future of the kingdom in a reluctant referendum votes.
After the election yesterday, which came to an end around 10pm following a day in which storms and torrential rain disrupted much of the south – but did not appear to deter people from coming out to register their view at the ballot box.
The citizen of U.K. voted to quit the European Union after more than four decades in a stunning rejection of the continents postwar political and economic order.
British Prime Minister David Cameron had been reluctant to hold the referendum, but had promised that if his Conservative Party won in the 2015 elections, he’d hold it.
17,410,742 people had voted for Britain’s exit, a slim margin over 16,141,241 who voted against the exit. The exit has already begun showing signs of potentially damaging Britain’s economy, with the pound recording it’s biggest drop in one day in history.
Politician Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party said,
“Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom. This will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people … Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day.”
The result is also causing fractures within the UK, with Scotland, who voted for a stay, expected to hold their own referendum again to leave the United Kingdom and become an independent country.
The rest of the world, including US and Chinese presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping had campaigned for a stay vote, advising Britons that they’d be better off with the EU.