UK’s historic EU referendum on knife-edge as millions vote
Friday, 24/06/2016
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=159422&boxid=63425&uid=&dat=2016-06-24
London: Millions of Britons on Thursday braved rains to cast their vote in the knife-edge referendum to decide whether the country will stay in or leave the 28-nation bloc, even as the latest survey gave the Remain camp its first solid lead in the bitterly-contested poll. Brisk voting was reported and members of the public posted photographs of busy polling stations across the country.
Both sides of the campaign have appealed to a record number of registered voters--more than 46 million--including 1.2 million British Indians, for a big turnout as Prime Minister David Cameron made his final appeal to ‘get out there and vote Remain’ and reject the ‘untruths’ of the camp in favour of Brexit or Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU).
SURVEY BOOST TO THE ‘REMAIN CAMP’
A late boost for the ‘Remain camp’ came from an Ipsos Mori poll, giving it a 52 per cent against 48 per cent for Brexit. The phone-based survey was completed in the last few days before the referendum and marks the most definitive lead yet for those campaigning for the UK to remain a member of the 28-nation economic bloc. Poll tracker of ‘The Daily Telegraph’ and and a YouGov poll for ‘The Times’ both showed Remain at 51 per cent and Leave at 49 per cent, reflecting the neck-and-neck nature of the campaign throughout the four-month period since Cameron announced the date of the referendum in February.
EUROPEAN UNION
It was originally set up as the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958 with six members--Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
EEC changed its name to the European Union (EU) in 1993.
