RIVAL SIDES ARE throwing their efforts into the final day of campaigning ahead of tomorrow’s vote on Britain’s EU membership.
Prime Minister David Cameron is conducting a spate of last-minute interviews to get his pro-EU message to voters before polls open at 7am tomorrow.
“Nobody knows what is going to happen,” he told the Financial Times. “I believe it will one way or another be decisive. Britain will not want to go through this again.”
The Remain camp has the slimmest possible lead – 51% versus 49% support for the Leave side, according to an average of polls compiled by What UK Thinks.
In a final push to win over the undecided voters who could tip the referendum, campaigners will speak at rival Leave and Remain rallies taking place within hours of each other in London.
Representatives from both sides clashed during a BBC debate last night. A final television debate will be broadcast on Channel 4 tonight, featuring anti-EU UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage and former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond for Remain.
The prospect of Britain becoming the first state to defect from the EU in the bloc’s 60-year history has raised fears of a domino-effect collapse of the European project.
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has urged Britain against leaving the EU. He described it as “an act of self-harm” that would endanger everything Europeans had worked together to achieve.
Two newspapers used their front pages today for last-minute endorsements of opposite sides of the campaign.
“Lies. Greedy elites. Or a great future outside a broken, dying Europe,” the Daily Mail wrote. “If you believe in Britain vote Leave.”
But the Daily Mirror urged readers to back EU membership “for your jobs … for your children … for Britain’s future”.
The campaign has been fought over the two key issues of the economy and immigration, with both sides accusing the other of “scaremongering”.
The Mirror described it as “the most divisive, vile and unpleasant political campaign in living memory”.
Jo Cox
Around the world, events will be held to mark what would have been the 42nd birthday of MP Jo Cox, who was murdered last week on a street in her electoral district in northern England.
Thomas Mair is due to appear in court for a preliminary hearing after the killing. In his first court appearance he gave his name as “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain”.
Cox’s widower Brendan said his wife, a noted pro-EU campaigner who advocated for refugee rights, had been killed because of her political views.
“She worried about the tone of the [referendum] debate … The tone of whipping up fears and whipping up hatred potentially,” he told the BBC.
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