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IT’S THE BIG DAY.
This morning Britain goes to the polls to decide whether or not to remain a member of the European Union.
It’s been months of debates, back and forth arguments between the Remain and Leave sides, and relentless campaigning from both camps – but now it’s all set to come to a head.
The next 26 or so hours could change the face of EU and with it the rest of the world.
Here are the times of when everything will play out:
Thursday 7am: Polls open
About 41,000 polling stations across the UK will open and eligible voters will be able to cast their vote.
Thursday 10pm: Polls close
Polls will close at 10 tonight and thousands of ballot boxes will be transported from polling stations to one of 212 counting venues across the UK – where counting will begin.
Thursday 11.30pm: Local turnout figures start to be announced
There will be 382 individual counts for each council area across Britain, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. It shouldn’t take too long for the local turnout figures for areas to be announced.
Counters will have to verify that all the votes have been accounted for and they can then issue a local turnout figure. The earliest of these is expected at about 12.30am (probably from Sunderland).
Friday 12.30am: First local results begin to be announced
This is when things will start to get interesting.
The first local count results are expected to start coming in around now. There will be a big discrepancy between individual counts – with results for some areas coming in much earlier than others.
The UK Electoral Commission has a downloadable spreadsheet on its website with the expected declaration times of all the local counting areas.
The three earliest expected times are:
Friday 3am-4am: Majority of local results announced
The majority of local results will be announced by this point, however there will still be some stragglers.
Friday 4am: Regional results will start to be announced
After the local results are totted up, each of the 12 voting regions will start to announce their results – and by now the overall picture may start to become clear.
The first regions to report will be the ones with smallest populations. So Wales, Northern Ireland, London, etc.
Areas like Wales and London are expected to be strongly pro-Remain, so an early lead when these regions declare is to be expected.
Friday 6-7am: Final regional results will be announced
The overall result of the vote should be fully clear after the majority of the regions announce their results.
The Eastern, North West and South Eastern regions will be the final to declare and they should have their results in by 7am.
Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes – who outlined key areas to look out for when the results are declared – said that certain “bellwether” areas will give the picture better.
“Watch for ‘bellwether’ areas like England’s eastern and southern coasts, the East Midlands and Cumbria,” he said.
These areas will help decide the final result.
Friday breakfast time: National result announced
Once all the regional results have been announced, Jenny Watson, the chief counting officer (CCO), will declare the national result at Manchester Town Hall.
It is not certain when this result will be but it is expected about breakfast time.
Friday mid-morning: David Cameron announcement
Whatever the result, UK Prime Minister David Cameron will be obliged to give an announcement following the national result declaration.
Only time will tell whether it’s a celebratory speech or an acknowledgement of defeat.
Friday lunchtime: Expected statements of EU leaders
Leaders from across the EU (including Enda Kenny) will give speeches about now. And much like David Cameron’s statements, it what they will say won’t be known until the final results are in.
Expect announcements, speeches and statements from both sides of the referendum and all the groups associated with the campaign as the counting gets underway and the fate of Britain and Europe goes to the polls.
TheJournal.ie will be liveblogging all the Brexit day action today and throughout the night.
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Come on UK, do the right thing…………….
…and get out.
If we go which hopefuly we will Ireland should also be given the chance to leave an undemocratic fudementaly flawed EU making our islands free of damaging continental interference
Nice fence there , John……everyone thinks you sitting on theirs……lol
@lunatic… we’ve already paid up for the next 50 years by talking on all of their bad debt. it would be a bit harsh promising to pay that off while not getting any benefits (like toll free roads, open travel and zero unemployment… oh, wait!)
Write off that 50 years with their bad debt it will soon be 150 years youre paying for join us and leave might not get you zero unemployment but at least you would have the chance mess up your own economy as hopefuly we will lol and not have the EU do it for us
After that performance last night by Ireland Britain could vote to leave the planet and we wouldn’t give a shit!
They should just vote to join the great nation of Ireland and too join in the celebrations of our greatest achievement.
If the EU, in it’s present form, was a benefit to people, this vote wouldn’t even need to be taking place.
You haven’t a clue!
That’s a great argument you’ve made there Proinsias. Completely changed my perception of the EU. Thanks for sharing your abundance of knowledge on the subject.
You have the cheek to talk about my post! Read your own original post, it is a meaning less sound bite.
I could write an essay on the benefits of the EU and the benefits to it’s people, but I don’t have the time so I found this link for you to peruse:
http://econ.economicshelp.org/2007/03/benefits-of-european-union.html
You might want ot recheck your sources there Proinsias. Even the comments section of your link are stating that the information used is outdated and inaccurate. Maybe try again there with a more reputable source.
Anything we get from the EU is like receiving a hug from your rapist.
Trevor, some more links for you, I see you still haven’t posted anything to back up your meaningless soundbite!
Austerity, decimated fisheries industry, below cost dairy, reduced subsidies, governed from Brussels/Strasbourg, Ireland pays more into the EU than it takes out, to name just a few. The original idea of the EEC is not the issue, the EU as it is today is where the problem lies. Countries from across Europe are watching closely, because if Britain leaves the EU, they’ll be requesting their own referendum in relation to their own countries. If the union was beneficial to all, then why would anyone want to leave.
Cameron says it better to be in so they can change things…but Juncker has already stated that there will be no more concessions.
If Britain vote to stay, Brussels will take this as an affirmation of their policies and there will be no change….and Britain will never get to vote on the issue again.
If Britain does vote to leave, this will start a debate among the remaining countries about what direction the EU is going and what can be done to change it for the better, so that it’s people feel part of it and not just flotsam in a sea of detached bureaucracy.
This vote is about the status quo or change for the better.
Trevor I will just address your first point, but I’ll also state that as you get richer (as we have done spectacularly since we joine) then you become a net payer!
Before we joined the EU we did not have a fishing industry as such, we had a small inshore fleet and left the high seas to the Europeans!
“In the period 1973-2013, the fish landings in tonnes by Irish vessels over 10m in length more than doubled. Based on one estimate of the 1973 data, the landings in the record year of 1995 were five times the level in the initial year of membership of the then European Economic Community (ECC).”
Proinsias, I think you should go over your facts before submitting. http://www.sceala.com/phpBB2/irish-forums-25255.html
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/government-debt-to-gdp
And just on your first point. If this is what you call getting richer, then I’d rather be poor.
http://www.financedublin.com/debtclock.php
I think you’ll see from this that the figures are going up, not down, and certainly not in our favour.
Of people I know for certain which way they’re going it’s 2:1 for leave. But that’s just 3 people. It may not be indicative.
My family in London say they don’t know a single person who will be voting remain, so I’m a bit surprised to see an expected large “remain” vote there.
I am British Ive only spoken to 1 person who wants to stay in a few have kept quiet but a lot have said the want to leave so where the 50% who want to stay in are im not sure on the telly pherhaps have seen some remain posters around but not on mass 80% to leave 20% to stay would be a fair assessment of what I’ve seen
I only know one person in Britain who is voting Leave and I know two who are actively campaigning for Remain.
What this primarily shows is that we can’t tell anything from our own social circles, who are largely the same class, race and to a lesser extent gender as ourselves.
IT’S called the silent majority, babes.
Eirexit ? Time to have a discussion
Seeing that none of our political parties are anti eu this will not happen
The AAA and Socialist Party are opposed to the anti working class and anti democratic E.U. Here’s an article outlining our position written during the E.U. led de facto cop against Greece last year:
“the experience in the last months should definitively answer the question as to whether any “good euro” strategy is possible – whether it is possible to implement anti-austerity measures, while sticking to the euro at all costs and not decisively challenging capitalism. It is not.
The rules of the Economic and Monetary Union and the EU itself are a neo-liberal straitjacket – designed to ensure adherence to right-wing economic policies, through the power given to the unelected ECB and through restrictions like the Stablility & Growth Targets, the Fiscal Treaty and the six-pack and two-pack. Therefore, any genuinely Left government must be prepared to pursue its demands of debt repudiation and an end to austerity to the end, even if it means being kicked out of the euro. It must prepare people generally for the need for a confrontation with the interests of capital in Europe, in order to set out to restructure the economy and society on a democratic socialist basis – organised for the interests of people, rather than for profit- maximisation.”
http://socialistparty.ie/2015/03/lessons-from-greece-how-can-the-troika-be-defeated/
de facto coup
The looney object to the EU …. but have no problem collecting wages from the EU, and ye wonder why everyone laughs at ye clowns :D
Tommy,
The capitalist class (for which you’re a rather inept mouthpiece) object to the working class but have no problem living off the backs of the workers.
the bookies are still saying that they will stay in and they were spot on in calling the conservatives winning the last election. whatever the result it should be respected and not called in to question and voted on again unlike us.
Until of course all the British living in Spain & France suddenly realize that they may need visa’s etc……come to Britain for a better life and your a immigrant, leave Britain and go to mainland Europe for a better life and your a ex-pat.
they were spot on with the Scottish referendum too, looks like they’re staying so.
I still say 62% to remain IN. People will bottle it today and continue in as sheep. Just like the rest of the EU.
Sadly that’s often the way of it, just hope people recognise the EU structurally is beyond reform. Maybe major civil unrest in 20 years who knows what’s cooking after this..
Martin did you say the same 20 uears ago?
Perhaps not. Though the rot wasn’t that particularly visible. Maybe because at that age had the head down working and paying mortgages n stuff, like a good sheep.. Given recent economic collapses it’s now more apparent what an officious undemocratic USSR style machine the EU has become.. Welcome to Skynet..
Given recent econmic collaspes we like to blame everyone else but ourselves. Also we went from being the poorest eu member when we joined to one of the richest (per captia). Don’t forget the eu stopped us from jailing gays, making women quit jobs when they got married or even warning us about overheating our economy back in 2001. Stop using the eu as a boggey man
Who’s this “ourselves” you’re referring to Richard? Most people do not belong to the senior banking or political class who conspired to load a mountain of private banking debt on to the backs of the Irish people.
You also seem to have forgotten that the ECB illegally coerced Ireland into the Troika bailout (stitch up) under threat of withdrawing liquidity funding to the Irish banks and collapsing our banking system as confirmed in the Trichet letters. This ensured every red cent of bondholder debt would be rapid by ourselves.
And you also seem to have missed the fact the at the E.U is now crushing the living standards of millions of ordinary Greeks including imposing a 6 day working week again to ensure the debts of speculative finance capital are paid.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/04/eurozone-six-day-week-greece
Just a couple of examples to show how the E.U is no friend of the majority working class but exists to protect the interest of t capital.
Wally do you not say your lot represent the working class… only shame is they dont vote for your clowns, why ever would that be :D
Because in order to be working class one needs to work. Voting for the Polemic before People/Anti-Common Sense Alliance shower would be a guarantee they’d never work again.
In that voting booth it’s going to be Status Quo for a lot of people, so … Living on an island. Roll over lay down or Break the rules and Burning Bridges. Either way the Party ain’t over yet.
Announcing results at 4am?! Surely not
Ohhh they will they will and don’t call me Surely lol
Who gives a hoot.
Some people might say the same about plane spotting. Each to their own.
Shots fired
Who says hoot?
Hard to imagine them staying in. Hope they will but the rhetoric has been so divisive, racist and xenophobic its hard to see the Remain side winning
As someone remarked recently the Brexit vote is a public manifestation of an internal Conservative Party row.
The party has been split down the middle, riven apart from the bitterness of the debate.
These rifts will never heal.
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody some good I suppose.
tttt
Seriously?! Wales is a country! Not a region!!!
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