por Redação
Os britânicos decidiram, em referendo nacional, deixar a União Europeia, informa a BBC. A votação foi acirrada, 52% x 48%, e a campanha do ‘Leave’ obteve 1,269,501 de votos a mais que seus opositores.
Com o resultado a libra caiu para seu nível mais baixo em relação ao dólar desde 1985.
O resultado do referendo ‘Brexit’ causou a reação de nacionalistas dentro e fora de casa. O líder do Partido pela Independência do Reino Unido (UKIP), Nigel Farage, comemorou a vitória e chamou o resultado de “dia da independência” do Reino Unido.
A líder da Frente Nacional francesa, Marine Le Pen, saudou o sucesso britânico e disse que irá convocar um referendo semelhante para França.
“Vitória da liberdade! Como eu solicitei por muitos anos — devemos realizar um referendo igual na França e nos países da UE” — Marine Le Pen
O político de direita holandês, Geert Wilders, também celebrou o resultado e soltou nota afirmando que a Holanda deveria decidir se permanece ou não na União Europeia.
O referendo não é vinculante, mas o primeiro-ministro David Cameron já sinalizou de que irá respeitar a vontade da maioria. Cameron declarou ainda que pretende renunciar ao cargo de primeiro-ministro em outubro, devido ao resultado do referendo.
David Cameron fez campanha para que o Reino Unido continuasse na UE, alertando os britânicos para as consequências catastróficas que a saída teria para a segurança e a economia do país. No entanto, o povo tomou outra decisão.
Abaixo notícia da BBC News, em inglês.
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EU referendum: England leads UK to exit
na BBC News
Voters in England have led the UK’s way out of the European Union with more than 70% opting to leave in nine areas of the country.
While Scotland and Northern Ireland backed staying, every English region except London voted to leave.
The England vote was 53.4% for Leave and 46.6% for Remain.
Boroughs on or near England’s east coast delivered the biggest wins for Leave, with Boston in Lincolnshire recording the highest Leave percentage.
Big cities were split with Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield all seeing winning margins for Leave of just a few thousand.
Boston saw 75.6% of voters back withdrawing from the EU while neighbouring South Holland backed Leave by 73.6%.
Boston and Skegness Conservative MP Matt Warman, who wanted to remain in the EU, said: “Britain has decided to gamble on Brexit – while I personally took the view that it wasn’t a risk I wanted to take, I’ve also said it was one person one vote, and a gamble that could pay off.
“The government now has a duty to make sure exit negotiations with Europe are as painless as possible.”
Prime minister David Cameron announced he will stand down by October. Voters in Oxfordshire, where he represents the constituency of Witney, had backed his pro-Remain stance.
Leave polled 15,188,406 votes while Remain had 13,266,996 in England. It meant the majority for Leave was 1,921,410 in England, compared with a UK-wide majority of 1,269,501.
Turnout across England was 73% with 28.4 million ballots cast.
‘Roar of defiance’
The strong support for leaving along the east coast compares with just 21.4% in the London borough of Lambeth and 21.5% in Hackney.
Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney, who campaigned for Remain, said the vote was a “a roar of defiance against the Westminster elite”.
“We have to listen very carefully to what they were trying to say to us,” she added.
The capital backed Remain most strongly in England.
The referendum exposed deeply divided opinion with several cities coming within a few thousand ballot papers of recording a different result.
In Leeds 50.3% voted for Remain, winning with a majority of just 2,389 votes.
Birmingham, where Labour’s most prominent Leave campaigner Gisela Stuart is an MP, opted to withdraw by a majority of 0.8%, with 227,251 votes compared with 223,451 for Remain.
Ms Stuart said there was a responsibility to act “in the best long-term interests of this country”.
Speaking at the Electoral Commission’s main counting centre in Manchester, the Vote Leave chairman said the Brexit vote was “our opportunity to take back control of a whole area of democratic decisions”.
All political leaders should now “reflect on whether they have accurately gauged the people’s desire to govern themselves”, she said.
The German-born MP said a calm cross-party effort was now needed to implement the voters’ decision “in the best long-term interests of this country”. And she broke into her native tongue to assure other EU nations that Britain would remain an “open, welcoming” country which would continue to co-operate with its former partners.”
In Cheshire West and Chester, part of which is covered by Chancellor George Osborne’s Tatton constituency, the result was 50.7% for Leave. The result was slightly more pronounced in Cheshire East, with 51.2% for Leave.