It is, finally, 23rd June, 2016, and the polling booths are open.  This is the rolling post in which I will follow the progress of the vote right to its conclusion tonight and then the count into the small hours.  I hope and pray that the day will be a satisfying and happy one for all those who love this country and the people of it, and who desire a future for both which is very much better than the one currently prescribed by our domestic and EU political elites.

7.34 am

My day begins with a quick trawl through the on-line nationals.  Nothing really new or interesting.  Plenty of voting advice, though.  “One last push” sums it up.

Anthony Wells’ blog reports on four final polls, two showing narrow Leave leads, two showing narrow Remain leads.  I still don’t know where all these Remainers are hiding.  I guess they could be Labour Party supporters somehow convinced by Jeremy Corbyn’s half-hearted ... no, quarter-hearted campaigning.  Or women frightened to death by Project Fear, or thinking only of “our Jo”, or both.  Or eighteen year olds principally interested in low roaming charges and necking vodka in Ibiza.  Or non-whites who like open borders because da whites don’t.  Or public sector workers who only ever do what their unions say.  You know, the workers’ famous solidarity with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley (the principal financial backers of Britain Stronger in Europe).

That must be it, I suppose.  If one throws in the dateline corporation lackeys and a few Civil Service mandarins.  But is that really half the country?

Well, excelsior.  Some orange juice and a croissant for me.

09.31 am

Heavy overnight thunder storms and persistent downpours have cleared the south-east, causing flash floods and leaving 22 warnings in place.  Everything pretty soggy.  More rain forecast later for the south-east and also the north-west of Scotland, otherwise dry and bright.  Nothing, I think, to influence the turnout in any significant way.

There will be no exit polls today, so the first declaration, which is usually from one of the Sunderland constituencies in GEs, will be the first indication of the public decision.  This vote is not being counted by parliamentary constituency but by local authority area, of which there are 380, with the addition of 11 regional areas.  The vote is taking place not only in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland but also in Gibraltar.

A record 46,499,537 voters are registered, including some hundreds of thousands of young people targeted by a government initiative earlier this month.  A heavy turnout would be expected to favour Remain.  However, there are some quite powerful motivational factors in play which favour leavers.

09.56 am

Speaking of rain and flood, the liberal classes are massing at Glastonbury.  Hopefully, most of them took too long to, erm, come down from the Hay Festival to organise their postal votes on time.

This being Referendum year, Hay organised a debate, hosted by the Telegraph.  Must have been the most Leave-free audience in the country.

Meanwhile, today’s Indy is shouting out the fear-factor of last resort in case any of the artsy in-crowd still hasn’t got the memo: Brexit would put Game of Thrones under threat.  Democracy and freedom are so yesterday, yah?

The Mail, quoting a University of East Anglia academic, is reporting that Leave must take Sunderland by six points or more to bode well for the rest of the results.

According to Hanretty, Leave will have to win by six percentage points in Sunderland - which prides itself on counting quickly - in order to be on track to succeed nationally.

Swindon is seen as so Eurosceptic that the Brexiteers would be expected to come out on top by 59 per cent to 41 per cent there to deliver a wider triumph.

By contrast, the London borough of Wandsworth is considered so EU friendly that Remain should only put the champagne on ice if it racks up more than 69 per cent of votes cast.

In the City of London, Remain should be looking at an even more massive margin - needing to win by around 77 per cent to 23 per cent.

Writing on his blog, Hanretty said: ‘If the result in Sunderland is very close, then Remain has probably won.

‘I said that we should expect Leave to be six percentage points ahead in Sunderland. That’s my best estimate of the gap in Sunderland, but it’s come with uncertainty.

‘If, God forbid, the referendum were to be repeated 100 times, then ninety times out of one hundred I’d expect the gap to be between Leave 14 percentage points ahead and Remain one percentage point ahead.

‘That means it’s not impossible that Leave will win whilst losing in Sunderland. But it would be difficult.’

But the best indicators could prove to be towns that are regarded as too close to call.

Lancaster, which is due to declare around 3.30am, may be a bellwether.

I sincerely hope a Leave victory is assured well before then.

10.36 am

Guido readers will know that he has been running daily campaign reports from the off, logging the social media fortunes of the two campaigns and also following the bookies’ odds.

Remain got away to a fast start in the social media, not least because it was an organised and united electioneering machine, while the Leavers were a shambles.  However, Leave’s social media performance steadily advanced, overhauling Remain’s around a fortnight ago.  Guido’s final figures are:

Leave social media count: 541,694 likes, 68,734 followers.
Remain social media count: 540,681 likes, 48,280 followers

The bookies tell a different story, but not one, I think, that holds implications for the vote - unless you think big money betters know something you and I don’t (and the wisdom of crowds does not apply in this case, because two-thirds of bets are for Leave - they are just smaller).

Whilst we are on the subject of the demos, the still delectable Liz Hurley revealed herself a couple of weeks ago to be a patriot and Brexit supporter.  She was in the working man’s newspaper again yesterday, attired thus:

Bit different from the charming message fashioned by Saatchi for Operation Black Vote.

11.24 am

Off to the polling station with my family.  After much deep and searching consideration over many months of torturous days and sleepless nights, I have decided, on balance, to reject the kind offer of Mr Cameron, Frau Merkel, and the drunk guy to hang loose with the Westminster village people, the bankers and bureaucrats, and to vote instead for my own folk.

11.52 am

Well, I didn’t see the polling station that busy at the GE in May of last year.  “Are you doing a good trade?” I asked one of the women staffing the station.  “Brisk,” she replied, smiling.

The GE turnout was 66%.  By comparison, the GE of February 1974 generated a turnout of 79%, but voter exhaustion saw that drop by six points in the re-run of October.  However, in June 1975 the voters went to the polls again, this time to decide on continued membership of what was then called the European Community.  The result was never in doubt, and voter turnout fell to 65%.  There is no guide in that for this referendum.  I quite expect turnout to top 70%, which will be a record for recent years and which will put the result beyond challenge, whichever way it goes - not that there is a formal mechanism in the legislation for challenging the result.

12.19 pm

The man without whom none of this would ever have happened:

... casting his vote in Westerham.

13.12 pm

I have been looking at some of the strongly Brexit, libertarian take on this referendum.  Samizdata, which is fiercely anti-nationalist (even to the extent of operating a steroidal version of CiF’s moderation), is running an interesting if rather defeatist piece by Simon Gibbs, which includes the following observation about the mismatch between the polls and the seeming ubiquity of support for Leave:

News from the front line. This comes via a brace of energetic libertarians and their allies who were giving out Libertarian Home branded leaflets today on Oxford Street. The office-worker demographic which was missing from our previous visit was back in force and so the tone of the crowd became much more hostile. Not just taking the other stance in greater numbers, but becoming rude and a little shouty. It seems anyone more removed from the coalface than a shop owner is much more inclined to be a Remainer, and perhaps less friendly too.

... The statistics to hand have 47% of the population clearly in the second [ie, non-hostile, working class] category, where our direct experience had ~90% voting Leave. It seems there is a pivot point somewhere in the range of C1 or C2 where Remain begins to out number Leave. Just as there is apparently a pivot point at age 43. Where exactly the pivot points are will determine the result, but I fear we will find it was a wealthy elite that keeps us in Europe. Divisions like that have consequences.

Libertarians are, like nationalists, an ideological demographic which is constantly bruised by the exercise of power in the modern age.  After a while, defeatism - a particularly corrosive acid - seems to become pretty much unavoidable.  Here is a piece written by the estimable Sean Gabb in which he announced that the Referendum was lost.  It was published on 27th May.  I offered the following reply on the thread:

Guessedworker says:
28 May, 2016 at 11:27 am

Sean, you are too pessimistic. The pollsters are wrong – indeed, they cannot even model the (what is essentially nationalist) sentiment of those who seek a national liberation from the interests and structures which now control our lives, because that sentiment exists outside the parameters of the modern liberal desiderata – something you will dispute, no doubt; but such it is.

We are going to win on June 23rd. No thanks to Vote Leave, but that is what is going to happen. It is a only a beginning on a long, vivifying journey.

Incidentally, within nationalism proper Larry Nunn (as Max Musson) has elucidated a not totally dissimilar communitarian vision to yours:

http://www.westernspring.co.uk/the-need-for-new-vision/

… and, again, Larry is deeply pessimistic about the future of Europe’s peoples and the peerless social and cultural goods we have generated. He, of course, has already experienced a sundering of his political world when, after his 2009 election to the European Parliament, Griffin pulled down the BNP about himself. But the struggle of our people is the struggle for life itself – that is what it has become – and is not lost with a minor political party or, in your case, a minority political ideology. The struggle for life will intensify even as the threats to it solidify and grow. The great question for people like us is not how to make our personal preferences and ideas, whatever they may, regnant but how to guide that struggle, and make it the dominant intellectual, moral, and political force in the land.

Hardly any libbos respond to expressions of nationalist sentiment , which is a pity because it denies the nationalist an opportunity to correct the error about “collectivism”.  Nobody responded to my comment this time.  But a few days later, when the Leave surge began to register, I returned to the thread and, by some miracle, did get a (very, very brief) reply from Sean:

Guessedworker says:
6 June, 2016 at 2:58 pm

Sean, do you still think that your pessimism is well-founded – and, therefore, my optimism mistaken?

Sean Gabb says:

7 June, 2016 at 7:17 am

The polls are encouraging. But I remain pessimistic.

Roll on Sunderland tonight.  That’s all I can say.

15.18 pm

Zerohedge, a site that sometimes turns tin-foil into tank armour, has an intro to the Referendum which is quite interesting in parts.  Well, this part, to be precise:

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Turnout could be key to the result but only partial figures will be available initially. Turnout at last year’s British parliamentary election was 66 percent. Turnout well below this is likely to favour Leave as those who back Brexit are considered more likely to vote, according to campaigners on both sides.

First results: Sunderland, likely to be one of the first results to declare (2330), has a large number of older, lower income voters who polls show are more likely to back Brexit. If Leave are not strongly ahead here it may indicate they will struggle to break through in areas less favourable to Brexit.

Geography: Leave is expected to do well in eastern England, so close results in some of the most eurosceptic areas such as Southend-on-Sea (0200) and Castle Point (0130) could give an indication the national vote has swung towards Remain.

Labour voters: Opposition Labour Party supporters are considered key to securing a Remain vote so the results of traditional Labour strongholds such as the north of England and south Wales, where backing for the anti-EU UK Independence Party has risen, will be closely watched.

Early declarations in such areas include Oldham (0000) and Salford (0030) in northern England and Merthyr Tydfil (0030) in Wales.

Scotland: Scotland is considered to be pro-EU, so any close early results from Scotland such as Stirling (0030) could indicate trouble for the Remain camp.

Swing seats: Nuneaton (0100) is considered a bellwether seat in parliamentary elections so will be watched to see if Prime Minister David Cameron has managed to get swing voters who last year backed his Conservatives to turn out for Remain.

Count chronology: Some research has indicated Remain could be well ahead at first and that from around 0300-0400 the Brexit count is less likely to deviate from the end results. Others, as the Open Europe think tank, have suggested that by about 0330 most of strongest Leave areas will have declared so if Leave do not hold the lead or even if it is very close, it may bode badly for them. Ron Johnston, a professor of geography at the University of Bristol who has researched the counting areas and modelled how the vote could unfold, said the big picture was that the figures could flip around until about 0300.

Speaking of tin foil:

Voters using their own pens at the polls after wild warnings of ‘MI5 plot’ to rig EU referendum

Paranoid referendum voters have been using their own pens at polling stations after wild warnings that pencil-written ballot papers may be erased as part of an MI5 conspiracy to remain in the EU.

The #usepens hashtag, which first emerged during the General Election, has been trending again on Twitter.

However, there were confused scenes on Thursday as a council warned ink may smudge votes, rendering them void.

@ENCouncil yes make it easier to rub out your vote to be changed, what do you think people are using quills & bottles of ink? Lol

— Spock Logic (@meganZdad) June 23, 2016

The MI5 theory emerged after a YouGov poll asked people about “some things that people have said about the EU referendum campaign”, including “it is likely that the EU referendum will be rigged”.

16.30

A cautionary word on the late, late poll by Populus, which has excited a few Remain folk.  Anthony Well’s update to the post I mentioned above:

Finally, and a little surprisingly, Populus have produced a final call poll. Populus’s Andrew Cooper has been working with the StrongerIn campaign so the company haven’t been putting out regular polls during the campaign, but they have produced final topline figures of REMAIN 55%, LEAVE 45%. Unexpectedly given the topline results the poll was conducted online (completely messing up that “phone & YouGov saying in, other online saying out” pattern). Populus haven’t released tables yet, so I’ve no details of the weightings or adjustments used.

Something else to look out for.  Although no actual exit polling will be conducted, YouGov will be running a standard poll during the course of the day, the results of which will be announced at close of ballot.

19.46 pm

So here we are, with little more than two hours of voting left, and not a clue whether the pollsters will be proven accurate.  That knowledge could be another seven or eight hours away yet.  But the Guardian has some advice for cat-nappers :

EU referendum: with no exit poll, when is the result announced?

With no exit polls, if you are desperate to know whether Britain will leave the EU you’ll need to be up and alert from 2am

12.30am
The voting is done by 380 council areas, not by constituencies, so it will play out slightly differently from election night. Sunderland (always the first in a general election) and Wandsworth are expected to declare first, and we can learn a bit from their results, depending on whether either campaign does better or worse than expected.

Wandsworth should have a very strong remain showing, with Sunderland showing a narrower lead for Brexit, about 55-60%. Anything lower than that for Brexit will be a great start for remain campaigners.

The City of London is expected to be among the first as well, declaring around 12.45am and likely to show a substantial lead for remain. The remain vote is likely to look high in the early hours of the morning. If it doesn’t, that’s a big problem for in campaigners.

1am
Gibraltar and the Isle of Scilly will have high remain votes, but the voter numbers aren’t exactly huge. More telling will be results from Salford and Stockport, which will start to give us a sense of whether Labour’s safe seats in northern England are as pro-leave as has been predicted. That conversation could dominate the punditry for an hour or so.

Another to watch is Swindon, where leave will hope for a win, but a chunk of middle-income voters in their early- to mid-30s in the area – natural David Cameron voters – might push it towards remain.

Hartlepool, a leave heartland, is expected to declare during the hour, as is Merthyr Tydfil, which should also show a lead for leave.

Northern Irish results should start coming in, which will be interesting as there’s been very limited polling in the area. Most areas in Belfast should declare during the hour and instinct would suggest a remain lead, over concerns about the border crossing.

2am
This hour is a good time to start concentrating, so put some coffee on.

Westminster, Wandsworth, Ealing and Oxford may give remain the lead here. These are likely to be very safe areas for a remain vote, with high numbers of graduates and younger voters.

We’ll also start to see a number of Scottish results rolling in, from Shetland, East Ayrshire and Angus. If these show only a weak lead for remain, it might be time for Cameron to worry.

Key Welsh boroughs to watch are Blaenau Gwent and Neath Port Talbot, where the opposite is true: Vote Leave will want a good win here, especially in the area troubled by the steel crisis, which Brexit campaigners have linked to the EU.

Castle Point, a key Eurosceptic area in south Essex, will declare around 2.30am. About 70% of voters are in favour of leaving the EU.

Crawley in West Sussex, a bellwether seat in the general election and also likely to be pretty evenly split at the referendum, is also due to declare, as is South Norfolk, where the split should also be telling.

According to JP Morgan’s analysis, commissioned for investors, even if leave ultimately ends up victorious, the remain camp is likely to be in the lead until about 3am. If leave has a total vote share of about 40-45% at this stage, Stronger In will be celebrating.

But if that percentage for leave is more like 45-50%, it will be a very close run thing. Anything higher than that is an indication of a good night to come for Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Still, pundits are unlikely to call the race this early.

3am
Boston in Lincolnshire, where 68% of voters are predicted to be in favour of Brexit, is likely to declare now. Cambridge, one of the strongest remain cities in the country, will declare here, though surrounding Cambridgeshire is very much out-land. Jeremy Corbyn’s distinctly Europhile constituency, Islington, will also declare during the hour.

Look out here for West Oxfordshire, home to David Cameron’s Witney constituency, so the result will be symbolic of something or other.

4am
Time to hear from Tendring – home of Ukip’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, who represents Clacton – which is unsurprisingly one of the most Eurosceptic areas of the country. Great Yarmouth and Blackpool, both Brexit heartlands, could also bump up the leave share of the vote during the hour.

Harrogate, one of the most affluent areas of North Yorkshire, will be an interesting result to watch, especially if the leave campaign does better than expected.

Once South Staffordshire, Havering and Gravesham, all strong leave areas, are counted, the running tally should give a pretty fair idea of how the overall result will look, percentage-wise. Broadcasters may start officially calling the result from now.

5am
Manchester will declare by 5am, almost certainly for remain. However, by this time, about 80% of authorities are expected to have made a declaration, and it would be a huge surprise indeed if the final percentages differed greatly from the running tally at this hour.

Bristol, one of remain’s strongest areas and also the country’s slowest counter, will declare by about 6am, but it’s unlikely to make a massive difference.

7am
The official result should be in by now – unless there are substantial recounts needed and it is close – and Jenny Watson, who chairs the Electoral Commission, will announce the final tallies in Manchester.

20.20 pm

How close will it be north of the border?  Will two helpings of Project Fear in 18 months stick in the Scots craw?  Will a sizeable number of SNP voters go Leave in the hope, eventually, of securing a second Indyref when England drags Scotland out of the EU?  Hell, do the Scots like the EU any more than the English anyway?

The STV poll, put together by Ipsos Mori, shows that support for ‘Remain’ has been slashed by 13 per cent since April. Back then, 66 per cent of Scots surveyed backed Remain, compared to just 29 per cent who were planning on voting out.

In the last two months, though, much has changed. Now, the poll shows, ‘Remain’ has a 53 per cent share of support. When this is compared to ‘Leave’s’ 32 per cent, it still puts them way ahead. But what’s interesting – and worrying for the ‘Remain’ campaign – is how they appear to be losing considerable support in a country which it had been assumed could give them a considerable advantage in this referendum. As the spokesman for Scotland Stronger in Europe, John Edwards, said himself last month: ‘The Scottish vote shows every sign of being influential, if not crucial, for the overall turnout in the United Kingdom overall.’ ‘Project Fear’ switched off many voters in the country’s independence vote in 2014. Whether it’s alienating more voters this time around is a possibility which can’t be discounted, at least if this latest poll is anything to go on.

20.46 pm

The view from Conservative Home:

The truth is that nobody knows what will happen in the EU referendum tonight. Neither the commentators, nor the campaigners, nor the pollsters can tell how it might go. There’s a general consensus that it’s close, but that itself is based on polling which is still taking tentative steps towards recovering its credibility after last year, and trying to tackle an issue which seemingly cuts across all sorts of normal party political indicators.

And the view from Jezza:

Jeremy Corbyn has predicted a Remain victory in today’s referendum, saying he is “extremely” confident about the result.

Speaking outside the polling station in which he voted, the Labour leader said he expected things to go well for the remain campaign, saying “it’s a very good day.”

Corbyn went on to align himself with political betting firms, added those speculating on the vote “could either check the wind or check the bookies,” adding, “the bookies usually get it right”.

However, the Labour leader joked “They got it wrong on me last year didn’t they? I cost them a lot of money.”

21.04 pm

Speaking of the Labour Party, one of the oddest aspects of the entire campaign was the party’s self-indulgent decision to focus everything on workers’ rights (which, apparently, can only be protected from within the EU).  So here is a party which has gone head-over-heels overboard for racial egalitarianism, endless floods of foreigners, and anti-racism, and which casually and mechanically demonises its own traditional supporters as “bigots”, while affecting not to notice the damage done to job prospects for the working class and the young by open door immigration.  They know perfectly well that UKIP covets Labour’s northern strongholds.  You would think somebody in the party would be interested in putting a policy block on UKIP’s aspirations.  But no.  The lumpen mind of the Labour activist just does not attach any value to democratic right, national autonomy, the freedom to make laws ...  So, obviously, no Labour Party supporter could possible do so, right?  Surely, these Leave obsessions are far too complex for the working man and woman - isn’t that what the guy from Blue State Digital said last year? Anyway, isn’t industrial action for better pay and conditions the only really important thing in life?

If Leave wins today it will be in no small measure because northern working people - white ones - were engaged by Boris and Nigel Farage in a way which the Labour crowd could never aspire to do.

21.57 pm

Well, that’s it.  Now it’s for the TV people.  I will probably focus on this lot:

22.59 pm

Noises off: very large turnouts - 70 to 75% reported locally.  Remain highly fancied by the City.  Perhaps some disappointment among the Leavers.  Perhaps the economic fear stuff influential in the end.

A very heavy turnout - 7 or 8% above expectations - could reduce, in broad terms, to whether young voters for the Remain cause outnumber more politically disaffected older voters for Leave.  A large number of young people certainly registered to vote.  There could easily be 2 or 3 points advantage for Remain right there, which is the difference reported in today’s polls.

23.47 pm

Hang on a minute.  Sunderland and Newcastle may be pretty good for Leave.  Results to follow shortly.

00.01 am

Newcastle: less than two thousand difference for Remain, but not nearly as great a gap as expected.  A good beginning. 

00.11 am

Lower turnout may afflict the Remain vote in Scotland.  An issue that feeds into the claimed higher motivation of Leave voters.  Scotland is a lost cause as such for Leave, except perhaps in the Borders.  But anything that restricts the gap to Remain at this stage is helpful.

00.17 am

Sunderland: 65% turnout.  Leave on 61%.  Lots of cheering from the Leavers in the hall.

In the City, traders are already reacting by selling.  Whoops!

00.43 am

North Warwickshire: Leave vote said to be much stronger than expected; perhaps 70/30.  Result due within an hour.

Hartlepool: Very good result again expected for Leave, again of the order of 70/30.  Again, declaration in about an hour.

Lewisham: Anticipation there is a 80/20 for Remain.  To be expected.  The London problem.  Bad UKIP territory.  However, there is a question mark over turnout in the capital.

00.55 am

Swindon: 55/45% for Leave.  Solid but expected.

00.58 am

Broxbourne:  66/34% for Leave.  A little better than might have been expected.

01.08 am

Kettering: 61/39% for Leave.  Wholly expected, but that’s OK.

South Tyneside: 62/38% Leave.

Overall, an encouraging beginning.  None of the talking heads are speaking of a Remain victory.  They see it as a vote against the political class as much as anything.  And then they immediately, and wisely, remark that it is still very early days.

01.47 am

Basildon:  Big Leave area.  69/31% Leave.  Rochford: Also in Essex.  Similar win on a 79% turnout.

Blaenau and Merthyr both record heavy Leave wins.  Wales is doing well for Leave.  Scotland looks as though every area will vote Remain, the vote breaking roughly 60/40.

02.07 am

Bury - the first Lancashire result - goes for Leave.

St Helens, another Lancashire result, comes in 58/42 Leave.

02.07 am

Leave running at 53%.  Arron Banks, the primary funder of Leave.eu, reveals that private polling produced a 52% expectation.  He thinks he’s won.  I think so too.

Having said that Lambeth produced a 79/21% Remain vote, adding 111,000 votes to their total.  Wandsworth likewise.  Big results for Remain.  But then Barking & Dagenham votes to leave.

03.14 am

Leave first to the 5 million mark.  The winning post is thought to be 16.8 million.  We are just arriving in that part of the night where the bulk of likely good results for Leave are due.

The Daily Mail: The Brexit door opens! Britain is on track to LEAVE the EU in historic referendum as Out stacks up votes in the North and Wales despite wins for Remain in London and Scotland

The Sun:  WE ARE ON OUR WAY OUT. Britain on course for Brexit as Leave campaign makes stunning gains in the north and Wales

04.09 am

Nigel Farage has made a victory speech.  Perhaps a little early, but the sense is that it will be very hard for Remain to get back from here.

04.41 am

The BBC’s David Dimbleby declares victory for Leave.  It is impossible, he says, for Remain to win now.

WE WILL BE FREE!

Good morning to you all.