David
Cameron resigns after UK votes to leave European Union
PM
announces resignation following victory for leave supporters after
divisive referendum campaign
Heather Stewart and
Jessica Elgot
Friday 24 June 2016
08.28 BST
David Cameron has
announced his resignation after the British public rejected his
personal entreaties and voted to leave the European Union.
“The will of the
British people is an instruction that must be delivered,” the prime
minister said.
He promised to
remain in post until the autumn, to “steady the ship”, but said:
“I do not think it would be right for me to be the captain who
steers the country to its next destination.” He revealed that he
had already spoken to the Queen to make his plans clear.
The dramatic
announcement came after a sharp fall in the pound and as £128bn was
wiped off the FTSE 100.
Cameron said: “I
am honoured to have been prime minister of this country for six
years.”
Earlier on Friday,
Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, became the first party leader to call
for Cameron to go, saying what Britain needed was a “Brexit prime
minister”.
Cameron’s team in
Downing Street were shocked and distraught by the narrow win for
leave, after polls had suggested a move towards a comfortable margin
for remain in the final few days of campaigning.
The prime minister
and the chancellor, George Osborne, had gambled their political
futures on the historic referendum, which was called to settle the
deep divide within their own party.
But a narrow victory
for remain early in the night for Newcastle, which had been expected
to reject Brexit by a strong margin, set the pattern for later
results, which saw voters rejecting the overwhelming advice of
economic experts that leaving would be an act of “economic
self-harm”.
In the Labour
stronghold of Sunderland, leave led with more than 61% of the vote.
Nuneaton, famously the UK’s bellwether, went 66% for leave.
The value of
sterling slumped to a 31-year low on currency markets, and was on
course for its biggest one-day loss in history, as it became
increasingly clear that voters had rejected the overwhelming
consensus at Westminster, and chosen to exit the European Union.
Treasury officials
were preparing to implement contingency plans for calming financial
markets that were drawn up in the run-up to the poll, and the
governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, was also expected to
make a statement.
Both the BBC and ITV
called the result for leave at around 4.40am. Farage had declared
victory 20 minutes earlier, having earlier conceded he had probably
lost, saying the British people had achieved a revolution, “without
a single bullet being fired”.
Farage also
criticised the pledge, at the centre of the cross-party Vote Leave
campaign’s appeal to the public, to claim that leaving the EU would
free up £350m a week to be spent on public services.
“This, if the
predictions now are right, this will be a victory for real people, a
victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people,” he said.
Farage had been
criticised for what some saw as the divisive tone of Leave.EU’s
campaign, including a controversial poster picturing a queue of
migrants, with the slogan, “Breaking Point”.
The prime minister
had planned to announce a series of policy initiatives immediately,
to reunify his fractured party and relaunch the government.
Instead his team in
Downing Street were contemplating the end of their political project.
James McGrory, the
Stronger In campaign’s chief spokesman, told the Guardian: “From
the campaign’s point of view, the British voter has spoken, and we
respect their decision, but it is now over to the government. Our
role here is done.”
Gisela Stuart, the
Labour MP who had backed the cross-party Vote Leave campaign, gave
part of her victory speech in German, saying Britain would remain an
open and friendly country.
“People were given
the impression they had no choice but to remain, but they voted to
Leave. It is incumbent on all of us to be very calm and remember our
responsibility for the future of the United Kingdom,” she said.
The shadow
chancellor, John McDonnell, said: “People will be waking up this
morning to turmoil in the markets and the pound crashing, and fearing
the emergency budget the chancellor threatened to hike their taxes
and cut public services.
Hilary Benn, the
shadow foreign secretary, had earlier said Cameron would have to
resign if the UK voted for Brexit. “If there were to be a vote to
leave, then as far as the prime minister is concerned I don’t see
how he is going to remain in his job for very long at all,” he
said.
Countries wishing to
leave the EU must trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which
kicks off a two-year process of negotiations with the other 27 member
states.
The Labour leader,
Jeremy Corbyn, had earlier called for the prime minster to trigger
article 50 – the formal process for a country withdrawing from the
European Union.
“The whole point
of the referendum was that the public would be asked their opinion,
they’ve given that opinion and it’s up to parliament to act on
that opinion.”
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