Brexit: live reports

8am, British time

And that’s a wrap. For the sake of completeness, the final result: a win for “leave” with 51.9%, a margin just short of 1.27 million. Turnout was 72.2%, up from 66.4% at last year’s general election.

“Remain” carried Scotland with 62.0%, Northern Ireland with 55.8% and Greater London with 59.9%. “Leave” carried every other region of England, with 53.4% in England as a whole, and also 52.5% in Wales.

David Cameron is expected to make a statement shortly, but regardless of what he says, it’s going to be a bloodbath on the London financial markets.

I’ll have some thoughts on what it all means in a later post.

5.35am

With over 92% counted, the result is well beyond doubt. “Leave” has 51.8%, a lead of just over 1.1 million votes. Still waiting on Cornwall, Shropshire, Brighton, Northumberland, Chester, Derby and a few others, but otherwise that’s about it. Leeds went narrowly for “remain”, York rather more strongly. Wales in aggregate voted narrowly for “leave”; Scotland voted more than 60% for “remain”, with every district going the same way.

Every region of England seems to have voted “leave” except for Greater London.

5.00am

And Birmingham, with its 450,000 voters, votes narrowly (50.4%) for “leave”. That’s it for certain. Still about a sixth of the vote to come in, but the margin won’t change much from here; “leave” still at 51.7%.

4.45am

The latest string of results have boosted “leave” to 51.7%, a lead of almost 850,000 with just over 75% counted. Even with Birmingham and Leeds still to come, I think we can call that now: remain can’t win from here. The British TV networks agree.

No official word from the government yet, but David Cameron is expected to resign.

Sterling now at its lowest level since 1985 – below the GFC, below Black Wednesday.

4.25am

With almost two-thirds of the vote now counted, UKIP’s Nigel Farage has effectively claimed victory: “a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people.” Categories that in his mind evidently include Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Vladimir Putin.

“Remain” is doing better out of the later English results, as expected, but I don’t think it’s by enough of a margin to change the picture. Currently “leave” leads by 593,000 votes, on 51.4%.

4.10am

A good result for “remain” in Cardiff, with 60.0%. That’s about it for Wales, which in total has voted narrowly for “leave”. “Leave” is now more than a million votes ahead in England – if it’s going to be pegged back, that’s where it has to happen. With about 60% counted, “leave” has 51.1% overall, so still too close to call.

4.00am

Only two Scottish counting areas to come (Aberdeenshire and Dumfries & Galloway), and so far every one has voted “remain”, with only Moray (50.1%) being close. London is almost as one-sided, with only one borough so far (Barking & Dagenham) voting to leave. But although “remain” is looking a bit better than it was half an hour ago, I still can’t see it reeling in this one.

“Leave” ahead by 478,000 in total, on 51.3% with about 54% counted.

3.55am

Sterling has dropped 6% this morning against the US dollar, with probably more to come. Sheffield voted narrowly for “leave”, but Manchester recorded 60.4% remain. Also strong “remain” votes in Hackney and Kensington & Chelsea. But “leave” is still holding on 51.2%, 421,000 votes ahead with more than half counted.

3.45am

Even with Edinburgh coming in (74.4% remain), “leave” is extending its lead – and there’s very little of Scotland left to go. What little hope “remain” has left rests on the London boroughs (which so far are heavily “remain”) plus Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham.

With about 48% counted, “leave” is more than half a million votes ahead, on 51.7%.

3.30am

Another slab of “leave” wins: Lichfield, Wolverhampton, Ashford, Colchester, Stratford-on-Avon, Thurrock, Great Yarmouth, Crawley, Barrow-in-Furness, Purbeck, Epping Forest, Mid Devon. “Remain” won Wirral and Vale of Glamorgan, but not by much. One of the things that’s hurting “remain” is that turnout in Scotland is lower than the average (65.8% according to the BBC), presumably due to voting fatigue. Compare that with 84.6% in their own independence referendum (the first one, that is – at this rate there’s bound to be another).

Latest totals have “leave” on 51.3%, about 360,000 ahead with just over 40% counted.

3.15am (British time, remember)

The sharemarket has recovered a little from its earlier fears, but still down 1.5% this morning. With almost 30% counted, leave is about 86,000 votes ahead, with 50.4%. The problem is that there’s an awful lot of middle England still to come – just the sort of places that have been giving big majorities to “leave”.

3.00am

Liverpool now in – “remain”, but only by 58.2%. Leave is now back in front overall. The BBC still says “The outcome is predicted to be close,” but to me it doesn’t really look close at all. Unless something unexpected happens, “leave” is going to win comfortably.

By my count, “leave” on 50.3% with about 24.5% counted.

2.55am

About 20% counted, and it’s almost neck and neck: remain is 22,000 votes ahead, with 50.2%. Finally some more English areas voting “remain” – Exeter, Stroud and the London borough of Hammersmith & Fulham – but they’re few and far between. Unless the big cities outperform expectations, I think “leave” has this in the bag.

2.50am

With something like 18% counted, “remain” has 50.8% of the vote, or a lead of about 92,000. But that’s deeply misleading because such a large proportion of the early counting is from Scotland, which is big for “remain”. The vast bulk of what’s to come is from England, and in England “leave” is leading by more than 300,000 votes.

2.35am

And just as I said that we have two London boroughs, Lambeth and Wandsworth, both strong for “remain”. Ditto Oxford. But otherwise England and Wales are still pretty uniformly “leave”. A lead of 62,000 for remain, with 13.8% counted on my reckoning.

2.30am

Almost 12% counted, and a big (expected) win for “remain” in Glasgow has put it back in front, with about 50.7%. Still none of the London boroughs in, and of course none of the big English cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool. So the remain side shouldn’t give up hope yet. Nonetheless, I’d still say it’s looking very bad for them.

2.10am

And the pattern is still holding. City of London voted (as expected) 75% for remain, but otherwise it’s “leave” right across England and Wales: Blaenau Gwent, Rochford, Flintshire, Brentwood, Southend, Wellingborough, Swansea, Bury, Harlow, Eden, Redcar & Cleveland. Leave is now on 53%, or about 150,000 votes ahead.

1.50am

Results coming in more quickly now, but no joy for “remain” outside of Scotland and the nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Hartlepool voted 70% for leave, Stockton-on-Tees 62%, Merthyr Tydfil 56%, Basildon 69%. If remain is going to pull this off, they need to start improving pretty soon.

If not, say hello to an independent Scotland in a year or two.

1.35am

Now 13 counting areas in, plus two from Northern Ireland, and “leave” is outperforming expectations. It’s ahead by 28,000 votes, but that number doesn’t really matter at this point, it’s more that “remain” majorities are not as good as they should be in its good areas, while “leave” is doing better in its. Still a long way to go, but this could be a boilover.

That message has also gotten through to the sharemarket, which was up slightly on opening but has now dropped into negative territory.

1.00am (all times British, nine hours behind eastern Australia)

Leave has now hit the front, 53% to 47%, with two southern English districts, Swindon and Broxbourne, unsurprisingly voting to leave.

12.55am

First result in from Northern Ireland, in Foyle, and it’s a big “remain” majority. Remain now about 20,000 votes ahead; it also won in the Isles of Scilly. Although Northern Ireland is theoretically one “counting area”, we’ll get results per constituency (18 of them) as they’re counted – but they don’t count towards the 382 total. (Logically, that means the total is really 399, but the British don’t seem to think that way.)

The local Northern Ireland results show up at the BBC but not apparently at the Guardian, contradicting what I just said about the latter being more useful. C’est la vie.

12.45am

No more results, but someone at the Guardian must have been reading – its main results page now has total numbers as well as percentages, making it a more useful resource than the BBC.

12.30am (British time)

With five counting areas reporting so far (and 377 to go), “leave” has a narrow lead, of just over 5,000 votes. Four of the five have actually voted for “remain”, but there was a big “leave” majority – rather bigger than expected – in Sunderland. Newcastle, which was expected (like most big cities) to vote strongly for “remain”, actually did so by only a very narrow margin, 50.7%. So looking encouraging for the “leave” camp at the moment, but very early days.

I’m following the BBC’s figures, here; the Guardian has a similar feed here. The Guardian doesn’t give actual total numbers (although its blog does), and its percentages are rounded; the BBC, as far as I can find, doesn’t give percentages at all.