Our live blog was deluged with thousands of comments during a historic, hectic night during which Britain voted to leave the European Union. Here’s how it unfolded through the square eyes of our readers, some of whom stayed up all night as the results came in.
10:03pm: Polls close. There are no exit polls, but on-the-day polls predict a victory for Remain, albeit not by much. Farage almost immediately concedes. Confusion abounds. Is this some kind of cunning gambit? What about the conspiracy pencils? Surely Remain can’t have won that convincingly? Don’t people remember how wrong the polls were last year?
10:06pm As early on-the-day polls (NOT EXIT POLLS) suggest a win for the Remain side, readers keep themselves busy making their own predictions
10:07pm: The conspiracy theories have started already. I trust you all brought pens into the voting booths.
10:37pm: The Tories are preaching unity, in a very unified way.
I mean, it's almost like someone has *told* them to say this pic.twitter.com/T2cGl203vj
— Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) June 23, 2016
11:37pm: First to declare is Gibraltar, in a live Eurovision-style satellite link-up. Hello Gibraltar, can you hear us? Gibraltar gives 12 points for Remain, and nil points for Leave (translation: only 823 people in Gibraltar voted to leave the EU)
11:41pm Nigel Farage is on the news, doing a reverse ferret and not quite conceding as reported at 1opm (and on the front page of the first edition of the Sun). “I hope I’m made a fool of” but thinks Remain have won. Says the EU is doomed anyway. Says the word “establishment” a lot.
Glad to see that Nigel Farage is surrounding himself by a diverse crowd. pic.twitter.com/Eds7Iryf6B
— Siraj Datoo (@dats) June 23, 2016
11:54pm Do you have the fear yet? Some of our commenters are starting to get the fear. We’re not sure if Sunderland or Newcastle are going to declare next, but rumours about that the Leave vote in Sunderland is somewhat higher than expected.
Hearing early indications of 66% Leave vote in Sunderland which would be a strong result for them. In models it's predicted to be 53% #euref
— Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) June 23, 2016
The hints are there that this is going to be a vote for Brexit I'm afraid. If Newcastle is only marginally for Remain and places like Crawley are 60%+ for leave my gut feel is that the pollsters are (again) totally wrong on this.
12:01am Newcastle beats Sunderland to the count. Bet Sunderland are gutted. Remain wins in Newcastle... just. There’s really not much in it, which suggests a close result in the offing. Squeaky bum time.
So first result comes in and sterling slips to $1.4825... the margin for Remain was smaller than expected
— Jill Treanor (@jilltreanor) June 23, 2016
12:18am: The pound falls dramatically as Sunderland’s Leave vote is indeed rather high.
The pound now mirroring my heartbeat. pic.twitter.com/iyOcoLOm2X
— SimonNRicketts (@SimonNRicketts) June 23, 2016
12:40am: A lull before a deluge of declarations has both camps digesting the possible implications of the higher-than-expected Leave vote in Sunderland. Meanwhile, Clackmannanshire and the Orkney Islands have both voted in, but is turnout in Scotland somewhat lower than expected?
12:48pm: Oh, it’s the Isles of Scilly, who hate being called the Scilly Isles. They vote in by a few hundred.
Isles of Scilly have opted to #Remain by 803 votes to 621. Feel free to add your own puns in the replies if you don't like that result
— Guardian politics (@GdnPolitics) June 23, 2016
Polls badly wrong, worse results than expected in Labour areas and Ed Miliband on the telly. 2015 de ja vu running strong. #EUref
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) June 23, 2016
12:55am: Middle England’s Swindon votes Leave, by 10,000 votes. That, along with Broxbourne, brings Leave back into the overall lead. Unlike the Sunderland and Newcastle votes, these votes went roughly as was predicted. Looks like we’re in for a long night. Time to panic?
Sunderland and Swindon - both homes to giant car plants owned by pro-EU Japanese companies, vote for out
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) June 24, 2016
I just received an email from Ryanair inviting me to "celebrate remaining in Europe with 1 million seats from £9.99"!
What we are potentially witnessing is the death of the UK. If Leave wins, Scotland will leave the Union, Northern Ireland will descend into political and constitutional chaos and England will be badly divided between its older, Leave-voting generation and its younger, Remain-voting generation, who will feel that they have been betrayed by their elders.
1:03am: The more sensible commenters have started to go to bed. What kind of Britain are they going to wake up to?
There are big regional variations here.
We need a good spread of results from all over the country before we can see what's going on.
Also there is a big variation in the size of counting areas. Big areas won't report unit later, they may have different demographics from the areas that declare early.
I'm going to bed. We'll know in the morning.
Not feeling optimistic about tonight's result; just proposed to an Italian man to keep my options open #brexit
— James Turner (@eruditebaboon) June 24, 2016
1:40am: Maybe make it a best of three?
1:48am: Basildon votes for Leave, as we all knew it would. But that’s a whopping number: 67,251 against 30,748 for Bremain.
@Independent why? prove the UK will not trigger anger by allowing (sunderland) to lower the UK pound - THIS IMPACT WILL CONTROL ALL MARGINS
— Lindsay Lohan (@lindsaylohan) June 23, 2016
2:04am: We’re starting to get some results from Wales, where Ukip did better than expected in the Welsh Assembly elections in May. Swansea votes narrowly for Leave, by a margin of 3,629 votes. There’s a definite sea change in the comments - Remain supporters are getting increasingly sweary; Leave supporters exultant.
Leanne Wood suggests that a Leave vote in Wales would be a protest against austerity. https://t.co/WgtiyIAez8
— steven morris (@stevenmorris20) June 24, 2016
2:29am: It’s up to Scotland and London to drag Leave back into this, and Glasgow and London’s Lambeth and Wandsworth do their bit for Sturgeon, Cameron, Izzard and company. ‘In’ are slightly ahead for the first time in a while, with 2,075,550 votes. Still a long, long way to go.
Tonight is now down to a battle between London and the rest of England.
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) June 24, 2016
Dear Scotland, can we join you? Thanks, London xx
— Sarah (@sarahluv81) June 24, 2016
stop everything. this looks like a pig wearing a top hat pic.twitter.com/Zh8a3a1o4o
— jon hendren (@fart) June 24, 2016
2:52am: Remain are still ahead, but the expert opinion is that they very much needed to be *more* ahead at this point if they were to win. Islington - Jeremy Corbyn’s back yard - votes comfortably for Remain, but will it be enough?
3:11am: Results are starting to come in thick and fast now. Liverpool and Aberdeen are for Remain, Rugby (always was more of a cricket fan anyway), Lincoln and North East Lincolnshire Leave. With over 9 million votes counted, Britain is split down the middle on 50% for In and 50% for Out.
Just woken up for my @guardian early shift. It's like walking into a bad Christmas party
— Matt Wells (@MatthewWells) June 24, 2016
3:21am On the television, people at a Vote Leave party are cheering every Brexit majority declaration while chanting ‘Out! Out! Out’. Sheffield, home of Pulp, Cabaret Voltaire, ABC, the Arctic Monkeys and the Human League votes Leave by a margin of just over 6K. Milton Keynes votes Leave also. Things are looking increasingly grim for Remain, and the comments are becoming increasingly surreal.
Technically speaking, the count is ultimately comprised of atoms which are largely made of protons, neutrons and electrons. All of which can occupy a superposition. Therefore the count could also occupy a superposition and both sides could win at the same time. Let's hope so.
3.30am: On the BBC coverage David Dimbleby is talking about handing over the conch to an interviewee, in an unfortunate reference to a dystopian novel about the collapse of democratic civility.
You have the conch? Dimblebore is living on the Lord of the Flies island then.
3:35am: Commenters and readers have started to move on to the postmortem. What happens next? Will Cameron resign? What on earth has happened to Labour’s core vote? What happens to a Scotland who have voted overwhelmingly to Remain stuck in a United Kingdom seemingly heading for Leave?
If I were Cameron I too would resign, but only because I couldn't be arsed to negotiate the EU exit. Let Johnson and Gove inherit the hassle.
3:47am It’s Farage O’Clock.
I now dare to dream that the dawn is coming up on an independent United Kingdom.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 24, 2016
4:05am: Farage has just given what feels very much like a victory speech. “This will be a victory for real people”, he says, in front of cheering Ukip supporters. “Honesty, decency and belief in nation is now going to win.” Calls today Britain’s Independence Day.
Sterling dollar over the last 30 years .... pic.twitter.com/fFd7kUgzJG
— Jill Treanor (@jilltreanor) June 24, 2016
4:11am: Remember those conspiracy theories?
4:32am We’re still hours away from a final result, but with Leave pulling away by 700,000 votes the fat lady is in danger of singing a Brexit tune.
Questions to the brexiters: Do you really think you will have more 'control'? That you personally will be able to control something that you could not while in the EU?
4:40am: The BBC and ITV have both called it for Leave, with Sky news soon joining them. The mood in the comments is... mixed.
Looks like Boris Johnson will have to make his apology for the recession sooner than expected.
As a Greek, I never expected Brexit to occur before Grexit. Farewell folks, you will be missed.
4:56am: Wales voted Leave. England voted Leave. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted Remain. Are we set for another Scottish indy ref? Meanwhile, David Davis is looking very cheerful on the news, and thinks David Cameron must remain in the job, saying he is good at ‘getting out of scrapes’.
I can't believe we are out of the EU! I hope Dave has/had plan B for everything coming ahead.
5:21am: And with the sun up, and the Remain’s post-vote party in the Royal Festival Hall now completely deserted, it’s time to wrap up our wrap-up. Optimistic? Pessimistic? All we can say is there are plenty of recriminations to come.
Trade will continue
The Sun will continue to rise
The low pound will help reduce our trade defecit
So let's all embrace the decision and do what we do best get on and make the best of it
I think we can all agree that people who work in public opinion polls have no idea what they're doing.
Remain HQ #itveuref pic.twitter.com/XCCvLTbcYc
— Julie Etchingham (@julieetchitv) June 24, 2016
Farage says that Remain probably won, relieved that his MEP salary is safe.