U.K. Projected to Leave European Union
LONDON—Britons voted to leave the European Union, U.K. broadcasters forecast, a startling rebuke that threatens to spark political turmoil in the U.K., weaken a continent already strained by multiple crises and rattle global financial markets expecting the opposite result.
With 80% of voting areas reporting, Leave led Remain 51.8% to 48.2% early Friday. If that result holds, the U.K.’s ties with the EU would be severed after 43 years.
The result instantly reshapes the political legacy of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the “remain” effort, and imperils his job as prime minister. Whoever leads the U.K. will face the challenge of uniting a country that is now openly, and roughly evenly, divided over its relationship with Europe.
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Mr. Cameron tried to focus voters on what he said were huge economic and security risks that would accompany leaving the EU. But the campaign was increasingly dominated by a sharp and emotional discussion of immigration and Britain’s national identity.
“It’s a small country and we’re getting overrun,” said Chris Matthews, a 56-year-old Wales resident, reflecting a common Leave camp view that the U.K. had allowed excessive immigration. “They don’t speak the language.” Mr. Matthews cast his leave ballot in Wales on Thursday morning and spoke on a train to Sunderland.
The EU, meanwhile, will face an epic gut-check over its purpose and future. Britain’s exit costs the body one of its wealthiest members and one of its biggest military powers. The EU is weighed down with economic and migration crises and turmoil in the nearby Middle East and Russian aggression.
Now, it faces the possibility that similar euroskeptic forces across the region will come to life and prompt other members to attempt an exit.
Mr. Cameron staked his political future on the referendum. As leader of the campaign to persuade Britons to remain in the EU, he will likely face immediate pressure to resign.
It will come as a disappointment for the many people in Britain who had voted to remain in the 28-member bloc, driven by concerns of the risks of involved in leaving. Among the many major unknowns is what the U.K.’s trade relationships, not only with Europe but also other parts of the world, will look like and what happens to the many British citizens living elsewhere in Europe as well as the many EU citizens in the U.K.
The uncertainty battered the British pound by more than 11% Thursday night and into Friday morning. Trading in stocks and currencies over the past week had implied investors were increasingly confident that Britain would remain in the EU.
Early predictions that Remain would win were followed by initial returns showing stronger-than-expected results for the Leave camp in key areas of northeast England.That sent the pound on a rollercoaster ride, with the currency touching highs and lows for the year against the dollar.
As votes rolled in, a portrait of a deeply polarized nation came into focus.
Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and a key figure in the pro-Brexit camp, said regardless of the result, the referendum campaign had transformed British politics, catapulting so-called euroskepticism into the mainstream.
“I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nation states, trading together, being friends together, cooperating together…Let June 23 go down in history as our independence day,” he said.
As the first results started rolling in, the northeast port city of Sunderland, home to the U.K.’s largest auto plant and generally supportive of the main opposition Labour Party, saw a stronger-than-expected support for leaving.
The announcement there sparked a rousing cheer among those leaning Leave on the floor of the convention center where the ballots were counted. Supporters of remaining in the EU seemed shocked.
“Leave appear to have tapped deeper reservoir of traditional Labour voters than we might have previously assumed,” said Pawel Swidlicki, a policy analyst at Open Europe, a think tank.
Turnout was expected to be an important factor in determining the result, with many analysts having predicted a high turnout would benefit the Remain camp.
But heavy rains swept across southeast England, including London, a stronghold of pro-EU support, and turnout was lower than expected in pro-Remain Scotland.
“I never normally vote in a general election because they’re all as bad as each other, but I wasn’t going to miss this one,” said Kim Flemming, a 52-year-old unemployed mother of two in South London who said she voted to leave the EU because she thought the U.K. should have more control over its borders.
Former London Mayor Boris Johnson, a leading proponent of the Vote Leave campaign, exulted in Edinburgh on Thursday, the day Britons voted in a referendum on whether the U.K. should leave the European Union.
Former London Mayor Boris Johnson, a leading proponent of the Vote Leave campaign, exulted in Edinburgh on Thursday, the day Britons voted in a referendum on whether the U.K. should leave the European Union.Photo: Andrew Parsons/Zuma Press
Friday’s result is the culmination of a heated and at times vitriolic monthslong campaign that divided the country and pitted the prime minister against other senior figures in his center-right Conservative Party, with both sides accusing the other of misleading the public. The campaign was dramatically put on pause last week following the brutal killing of British lawmaker and active pro-EU campaigner Jo Cox, who was stabbed and shot in the street in broad daylight.
The debate laid bare the high levels of anti-EU sentiment and distrust of the political establishment among some in the U.K., expressing a frustration with the status quo that has similarities to the forces fueling support for Donald Trump in the U.S. and populist parties elsewhere in Europe.
It has also raised fundamental questions for many Britons such as national identity and the country’s place in the world that are likely to remain unresolved by the vote.
What many Britons on both sides of the debate agreed on was disenchantment with a vitriolic and divisive campaign as well as the gravity of the decision they were making, which unlike a general election couldn’t be easily undone a few years later.
While opinion polls had suggested a close-fought race up until the eve of the vote, the British public appears ultimately to have been swayed by arguments from the pro-exit campaigners, including that the only way Britain will be able to control its borders is by exiting the EU and that Britain faced a brighter future untethered to a Continent that faced increasing challenges.
Immigration became a key issue in the debate amid concerns among some Britons that the government seemed unable to reduce the numbers of EU citizens coming to the U.K. in recent years. Those campaigning to leave the EU argued that the only way for Britain to control the numbers was to leave. Membership in the bloc ensures the free movement of people between member states.
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha left after voting in the EU referendum at a polling station in central London on Thursday.
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha left after voting in the EU referendum at a polling station in central London on Thursday.Photo: stefan wermuth/Reuters
The result came despite Mr. Cameron’s persistent warnings of the economic and security risks of leaving—a strategy his opponents dubbed “Project Fear.” The prime minister had argued that leaving the EU would trigger a sharp decline in the U.K. economy—what he referred to as the world’s first “DIY recession”—leading to fewer jobs, lower wages and higher prices.
That message, nevertheless, resonated with some. James Townley, a 37-years old Londoner, said he was conflicted about his vote until about 10 days earlier. The business-development associate said if the vote was reversed and the U.K. was deciding whether to join the European Union today, he wouldn’t be in favor. But remaining a part of the continental bloc, he ultimately decided, is important to the nation’s prosperity.
Mr. Townley said there is a “fear of the unknown.”
In the final days of campaigning, Mr. Cameron crisscrossed the country in an effort to persuade voters. In a last-ditch appeal to voters on Wednesday, the prime minister also promised to press Brussels for further overhauls—including relating to the core EU principle of the free movement of member-state citizens. But he was quickly undercut by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who said Britain had already won the maximum concessions that it could.
—Katie Riordan and Scott Patterson contributed to this article.
Write to Jenny Gross at jenny.gross@wsj.com