First results in UK’s historic referendum on European Union membership

NEW YORK, June 24 (Reuters) – Sterling pared losses against the US dollar after plunging 10 percent to its weakest in 31 years on Friday following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, but still remained more than 7 percent lower on widespread market uncertainty.

An Ipsos-Mori telephone poll on voting day of 546 people put the proportion of “Remain” votes at 54 per cent.

Numerous areas expected to be strongly in favour of Remain were not as definitively against Brexit, with London throwing up a slimmer anti-Brexit vote than predicted.

“While the Northern areas were always expected to favour a Brexit given the age and income demographics, the margin of win for leave has come in at a high enough level to unsettle market expectations of a comfortable Bremain win”, Mizuho said in a morning note Friday after the Sunderland results.

But it’s still too early to establish a firm trend in a race that remains too close to call, even though opinion surveys have indicated a win for the Remain camp and anti-EU campaigners have said they expected to lose.

Early results had shown the leave camp had as much as almost 53 per cent of the vote.

Results from the knife-edge poll on Thursday, closely watched in Europe and the rest of the world, are trickling in as vote counting is underway across the country.

A further potential blow for the pro-EU camp came when it emerged Scotland and London – thought to be Remain heartlands – had among the lowest turnouts in the UK. The final announcement will bring to a close a fever-pitched and highly-strung campaign by both the Brexit and Remain sides.

Mr Johnson is among 85 Eurosceptic Tory MPs – including every Cabinet minister who voted Leave – who have signed a letter pledging loyalty to David Cameron and urging him to continue as Prime Minister regardless of the result. “Thanks to everyone involved + everyone who voted”. Analysts expect months of economic and political turmoil which will dwarf the pressure on United Kingdom markets following sterling’s “Black Wednesday” in 1992 when Britain was forced out of the pre-euro Exchange Rate Mechanism.

As other large cities began to report, the “Remain” camp made up lost ground to be neck and neck.

The dollar was last up 1.2 percent against the Swiss franc at 0.9696 franc after the Swiss National Bank became the first major central bank to intervene and drive down the value of its own currency. “It’s’risk on” when remain prevails, and “risk off’ when the leave camp leads”.

Market confidence took another blow after a bigger-than-expected vote by Sunderland to leave the EU.