United Kingdom Referendum on European Union Membership

[IceAgeComing]

Could some SNP supporters vote 'Leave' just in order to get a new independence referendum later?

that would be a very dumb thing to do; considering that a second independence referendum is kind of contingent of there being as big a remain vote in scotland as possible

[IceAgeComing]

He said he was going before the next election; that always would start to divide the party on leadership lines before we went: and add in the referendum and he'll find it hard.  I think that he'll resign before he's pushed, he's certainly going if there's a leave vote.

The Fixed Term Parliament Act is a theoretical block to a government calling elections went it would want to, but they could just amend or repeal it if they really wanted and they'd probably get a majority.  Corbyn will be leader of Labour for the foreseeable future - he's still very popular amongst the membership and I'd imagine that there would be resistance to trying to push him out, or trying to put a right-winger in.  Its also a big assumption that the Tories would do gain seats in a fresh election; no one really knows what's going to happen to UKIP or the Tories post-referendum and a lengthy bitter leadership election might cost them more support than a new leader would gain.

[IceAgeComing]

99.9%

In terms of the polls; I think that phone one that showed a leave lead might just be a rogue; although it depends what other polls show in the next few days.  There's also the fact that I'm pretty sure that generally you get a small swing back to the status quo in these things on polling day and I'm still pretty confident that remain will win: although I'm from Scotland where remain is pretty far in the lead (the last Survation phone poll was Remain 58%, Leave 19%) so that probably makes me slightly biased.

It'll be interesting to see if turnout is any different here than it is anywhere else in the UK - its somewhere where Remain probably will want to get out the vote quite strongly; there are a lot less voters here than there are in England sure but unless the polls are very, very, very wrong it'll benefit remain a lot more than leave and that could be important if its a close thing.

[IceAgeComing]

Keep in mind how the Tory leadership process works: its not like the Lib Dems or Labour where the membership chooses between several candidates, the parliamentary party has more of a say.  Basically the parliamentary party vote between all successfully nominated candidates until they have two, who the membership choose between.  If it was like Labour's leadership election then Boris would be the favourite; the issue that he has is getting through the parliamentary party which I think he'd find pretty hard.

[IceAgeComing]

they're counting by council area; I think its at the District level in England where they don't have unitary authorities.  I'd imagine that the broadcasters would point out the interesting results...

[IceAgeComing]

the only one of those parties that has any appeal to the population that he's talking about is People Before Profit; the DUP and TUV definitely doesn't have any appeal to the Nationalist part of the population.

The last NI opinion poll was October 2015 by "Lurid Talk" who I've never heard of; 56% Remain, 28% Leave, 15% "Unsure" - the RTE/BBC poll earlier the same month had a similar remain number but Leave down at 13%.  Assuming this thing is representative there's a huge sectarian divide: 54% of Unionist voters support leave compared to 21% for remain while for Republican/Nationalist voters 91% (!) of voters are for remain while 8% are for leave.  That latter number could go down I'm sure if there was a leave campaign that wasn't just British Nationalist flag waving and spoke in a way that would appeal to those voters; but with Sinn Fein and the SDLP supporting remain that's not going to happen, and PBPA isn't exactly a mass movement.

[IceAgeComing]

Survation just released a Scottish poll: 51% Remain, 21% Leave.  I did some awful maths and removed the undecided voters from the equation (although there are more of them than there are Leave supporters) and got 71% support for Remain which is the high end of where I think we'll end up here.  It all depends how those don't knows split, and what I've read about previous referendums undecided voters are generally likely to swing towards the status quo the longer they stay undecided before polling day.

There was also a Welsh poll that dropped: 41% for both Remain and Leave which is in line with all other Welsh polling, and suggests that England and Wales will vote similarly.  Its a rather old poll that they've only just released (ended last Friday) and although not a great deal has happened (bar the Farage/Cameron thing last night which I refused to watch) that's not too great since I'm sure a few of the UK-wide polls had field dates more recent than that.

[IceAgeComing]

i don't see how extending the period to allow people to register to vote is somehow a bad thing; I don't see why we can't have a system that either gets rid of the whole registration system or lets people register on polling day like some other countries have.  More people voting should always be seen as a good thing...

Arguably the decision to exclude EU citizens from the referendum (which was exceptional, in every other referendum they've been allowed to vote) was the only "manipulation" that occurred, and that's not exactly going to help remain.

[IceAgeComing]

I've found an article from Peter Kellner saying that in every UK referendum bar one there's been a late swing to the status quo - the only one that didn't was the 97 Scotland devolution referendum, which is a big of a special case.  If this happens again its good for the remain side since things are still close enough that a late swing puts Remain clearly ahead; although of course its not certain.  This is why I think the bookies haven't shifted that much even though leave are now ahead since there's precedent for a shift back the week before polling day.

In terms of turnout; the last Scottish poll I saw before the last General Election had certain to vote figures of around 85%; which was much higher than the eventual Scottish turnout.

[IceAgeComing]

The problem that you also have is no one really knows who's going to turn out and that makes polling harder - Leave is big among older people, who are more likely to turn out, but also among the working class who are less likely to turn out.  Most people assume that change voters are more likely to turn out in a referendum but the last national referendum with this level of coverage was forty years ago, and the vast majority of referenda since then have shown a late swing back to the status quo; the only one which didn't was the Scottish devolution referendum in 1979 and I'd argue that's a special thing: it was an issue that had been discussed in Scotland for a long time, they'd had a specific all-party plan on how the thing would work for literally years and Scottish voters had voted for the principal in at least the previous two general elections when all of the non-Tory parties had made it a big part of their election manifestos (don't know as much about 87, I'm sure it wasn't as big then).

I still think that we'll see a narrow remain win; although if we don't get any polls next week with a Remain lead I'll start to get worried.  There are some interesting scenarios which might lead to some interesting political developments: someone's already asked the Scotland one but Northern Ireland are also equally pro-EU according to the opinion polls and I think that might shock some people who aren't following this particularly closely - hell, what happens if its really close and its the votes of Gibraltar that keep us in?  I think that would lead to some tears from some of the more... interesting Leavers.  I'm also pretty sure that a very close Leave result wouldn't be taken as a strong mandate to leave and you'd have some hasty negotiations that they could use as an excuse to ask the question again a la Ireland and the Lisbon treaty.  The latter might just be misplaced hope than anything else though!

When I was in the gym this evening I noticed that Leave decided to repeat that awful NHS referendum broadcast; was it really effective enough to warrant that?  Its honestly the worst election broadcast I've ever seen, other than probably the one that Britain First were allowed a few years ago.

[IceAgeComing]

I'm surprised that Clackmannanshire aren't higher on that list; I'm sure that they declared before half midnight for the independence referendum.

We also need to add Gibraltar to that list; they're apparently predicting a 2am local time declaration; that would be 1am BST I think

[IceAgeComing]

Hard to say; our polling industry is really, really sh!t. Two out of the last two General Elections wrong (and not in the same way!) does not inspire great confidence...

That's why an exit poll would have been good; they've been a lot more correct in recent elections than the opinion polls were - although they now use a methodology focusing on seat numbers that can't really give you a popular vote share, so I don't know if they could have used that clearly better methodology for the referendum...

[IceAgeComing]

I think that NBC/Survey Monkey are alright in American polling but honestly who knows how they'll do this this; I think that no one knows exactly what to poll

I don't trust that USA Today thing; simply because I don't know anything about that polling company that they've mentioned and you shouldn't trust any polling agency that doesn't release accurate tables for that sort of thing.

[IceAgeComing]

Boris Johnson will not be Prime Minster; not matter the result of the referendum.

[IceAgeComing]

53 Remain
47 Leave

My feeling is that the chances for Brexit have dropped to almost nothing.  Momentum is a powerful thing and Remain has got it now at just the right time.

I have the same feeling, although I keep hoping the momentum will turn. Is it possible the debate of tomorrow night will have some impact?

Doubt it; the other debates haven't seemed to have done anything.  Although I've not seen any viewing figures, I'd imagine that they are pretty low.

Just going to stick my neck out in terms of a prediction: I'm going for 53.5%-46.5% Remain on a 64% turnout.  I can't see us beating a General Election turnout, but it'll be close.

[IceAgeComing]

They could technically amend the Fixed Term Parliaments Act to get rid of the two-thirds vote requirement for the early election motion and then pass that; or just manufacture a confidence vote loss and then wait out the two week period when an early election would be allowed by the Act, but that would give the opposition parties increased time to prepare for an early election than they would have had before it was passed.  Both of those things would take time to do - the first especially, since it'd have to go through the Lords where the Tories don't have a majority.  I don't think that the electorate would like either; since they both seem rather opportunistic...

That's why Cameron probably doesn't like how this turned out: I think that he initially would have wanted to go until 2019 and then brought in a new leader then who still theoretically should have been in their honeymoon phase when the election came, while now that's not going to happen and a new leader will be hanging around for a few years before the next election, probably getting rather unpopular.

[IceAgeComing]

In terms of when we'll know it'll depend how close it is: if its not a 51/49 thriller then the result probably will be clear by 3am when the flood of results will begin; if its close it might go down to the later counting areas.

I'm not entirely sure how they're declaring the result: some people are saying that its by local authority areas which is how they are counting the votes; some are saying that although they're counting by those they'll declare it by EU Parliament regions which would just be odd.

No exit poll, there probably will be some private polling but who knows if you can trust that

[IceAgeComing]

No important person on either side took the "VOTER FRAUD!!!!" thing seriously at all in the independence referendum, mostly because they actually understand how the counting process works

[IceAgeComing]

The release of the all-important Grindr poll on election day is now the best thing

Although 81% Remain is about where I'd imagine Edinburgh Gay men who are active on a dating app would be

[IceAgeComing]

Just voted Leave, I have to say, this was the most uncomfortable, distasteful and upsetting moments in my lifetime, never seen so many people at polling Station bitterly angry and frustrated before.

Shame on the Tories, they made this referendum all about fear tactics, personal attacks and cynical Immigration rhetoric, and they divided the country, regardless weather we remain or leave, England has change and to the worst. It's heartbreaking!

please remember that its not just England voting

I really hope that we don't get a situation where England (and possibly Wales as well) votes to Leave and its only a big Remain vote in Scotland, NI and Gibraltar that keeps us in; even though I think that us being in the EU is a good thing I'd hate to see just what the impact of that would be...

[IceAgeComing]

Trust me, this is worse than the independence referendum was.  At least that wasn't just a bunch of Tories trying to scare people and talk a lot about immigration...

[IceAgeComing]

Well that's not an official BBC1 stream; and I don't have Flash on my Macbook so can't tell you whether its showing BBC1 on something else.  I imagine that CSpan will show something at least; they did for the Independence Referendum at least...

The Referendum night programme is starting at 9:55 BST (I think that's 4:55 EDT); although the first few hours will be them talking about twitter rumours because the first results aren't going to be until Sunderland at 12:30 Friday Morning

[IceAgeComing]

Was there early voting?

Postal voting; and Proxy voting for those that were very late in applying for a postal vote

Early voting isn't a thing in the UK

[IceAgeComing]

I imagine that the BBC will have a page up; I'm not going to look until the polls close.

First results should be around 12:30 if the predicted declaration times are near right; Sunderland will probably be first.  The flood probably won't be until around 2:30-3am; unless its really close it'll be clear before then

e: Here you go

[IceAgeComing]

84% turnout.

wow.

Folks on twitter saying that could F*** with the models the polls use.

That's only the Gibraltar turnout at this point