British voters have defied the will of their leaders, foreign allies, experts and much of the political establishment by opting to rupture the country’s primary connection to Europe in a stunning result that will radiate vast economic, political and security uncertainty across the globe.
The voters’ decision to abandon Britain’s decades-old membership in the European Union and its precursors is expected to jolt markets worldwide today and unsettle Western capitals. When the BBC called the result at dawn in London this morning, the pound had already plummeted to its lowest level against the dollar in decades.
The result is perhaps the most dramatic to date in a wave of populist and nationalist uprisings that are seizing both sides of the Atlantic and overturning all notions of what is politically possible.
For months, political and economic elites had looked on with growing apprehension as the U.K. flirted with a choice – popularly known as Brexit – that experts had warned could lead to global recession and a rip in the Western alliance.
But most analysts had predicted this pragmatically-minded country would ultimately back away from the abyss, and opt to keep Britain in an organization regarded as an essential pillar of the economic and political order.
Instead, a majority of British voters heeded the call of pro-Brexit campaigners to declare independence from what many here regard as an oppressive Brussels bureaucracy that enables mass migration to the country’s shores.
As results poured in through Thursday night and into the early hours of Friday, the “remain” camp was increasingly despairing, while “leave” advocates expressed a growing confidence that their side had pulled off a shocking victory.
Results from much of the country had yet to be counted as of 4 a.m. local time. But the BBC reported that “leave” had taken an insurmountable lead amid stronger-than-expected margins for those advocating a British exit.
The results came after 15 hours of voting, from the remote Scottish isles to the tip of Gibraltar. They suggest that Britain may be even more deeply polarized than was previously thought, with huge gulfs between the views in thriving metropolitan centers such as London and those in struggling, post-industrial areas in other parts of England.
As local authorities announced results, they reflected a tantalizingly close vote that sent markets swinging wildly between optimism that the country would stay in, the preferred choice of investors, and pessimism that Britain had just voted to get out.
After initially rising, the pound plunged in international trading as jittery investors prepared for a scenario that had not been priced into market calculations.