The Leave campaign has officially won the EU referendum, comfortably passing the 16,813,000 target before going on to secure 51.9 per cent of the vote.
With all the counts declared, Leave has taken it by a margin of 1,269,501 votes.
Leave ended up on 17,410,742 votes compared to 16,141,241 for Remain.
It gave the pro-Brexit camp a victory of 51.9 per cent to 48.1 per cent, on a turnout of 72 per cent.
Nigel Farage declared Thursday as "our independence day", while Vote Leave's chair, the Labour MP Gisela Stuart, said it was "our opportunity to take back control of a whole area of democratic decisions".
But economists have started to downgrade their forecasts for UK growth, with a recession forecast unless a quick deal can be done.
IHS Global Insight said that is "substantially cutting" its GDP growth forecasts to 1.5 per cent from 2 per cent for 2016 and to 0.2 per cent from 2.4 per cent for 2017.
The result of the referendum will almost certainly spell the end of David Cameron's premiership.
Nigel Farage said Mr Cameron should resign “immediately”, while Labour also said that he should “consider his position”.
The outcome is also likely to spark a second independence referendum in Scotland that, unlike England and Wales, voted to remain in the EU.
