‘Remain in EU’ vote takes lead, show British opinion polls

The pound soared as polls closed when two opinion surveys put “remain” ahead and two leading supporters of the “leave” campaign said it appeared the pro-EU side had won, but then plummeted as Britain’s first few counting areas reported their results.

Some polling stations were forced to close and relocate due to the heavy rain that had fallen overnight in London.

And Leave campaigners were left furious after Chancellor George Osborne made use of Treasury research to warn that quitting the European Union would result in households being £4,300 a year worse off.

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron campaigning in Birmingham the day before the vote on whether to stay in the EU.

In extremely volatile and illiquid trading, sterling was last quoted at $1.4560.

The pound has now surged by 4% over the past three days, helping it reclaim all its losses seen since the start of the year – despite mixed results from the latest referendum polls.

The news pushed sterling to its highest level against the U.S. dollar so far this year on the signs of a last-minute rise in support for staying in the EU.

Yields on the cash note fell 16 basis points to 1.58 percent, the steepest one day drop since 2011.

On stock markets, shares of Britain’s big banks took the biggest hit, with HSBC, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland all falling around 17 percent.

Other analysts also had a straightforward explanation for the wild swings. Betting market Betfair said the probability that the country would stay stood at 86 percent.

In his closing campaign speech, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said it had been a “long, lonely road” for him and his party – which has campaigned for European Union exit for more than 20 years – and he believed his party’s supporters would “crawl over broken glass” to vote for Brexit. A big turnout was expected to favor the “remain” campaign, as those who waver at the end tend to go for the status quo.

The “Leave” campaign has raked in more funds than its opponents, according to Britain’s Electoral Commission.

“It’s all about turnout and those soft “remainers” staying at home”, U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said outside his home.

A British Election Study (BES) had found that 51.7% of them were against “Brexit”, compared to 27.74% in favour of leaving the economic bloc.

“This is a crucial time, lots of people will be making up their minds, and I hope very much they will believe in our country, believe in what we can do”, he said.

“Actually I do think we are in with a very strong chance, I do genuinely”. “And we have prayed”.

The Ipsos MORI firm is exected to release a poll at 10am tomorrow.

But the phone poll of 1,032 people on June 17-22 also underlined the confusion among voters as 11 per cent of people said they were still undecided.

Britain’s vote to leave plunged the European Union into a new existential crisis as it struggles to recover from economic woes, public disenchantment with Brussels-imposed austerity policies in debt-stricken Greece and Europe’s inability to manage the refugee emergency.