It is 10.01pm, 23 June. The polls have just closed. There is consternation in Downing Street that turnout is surprisingly low – well below not only the bookmakers’ prediction of roughly 80 per cent but even the more conservative estimate of a showing similar to the one in the 1975 referendum (65 per cent). It is just 48 per cent, and that has favoured Leave. Britain is out of the European Union.
What happens next? The expectation at Westminster is that David Cameron would have to resign as Prime Minister sooner rather than later, or at least announce a timetable for his departure. Boris Johnson would start as the favourite in the leadership race that would follow, though he would be vulnerable to tactical voting of the kind that kept Michael Portillo out of the top two on the third ballot in 2001, leaving Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Clarke to face the Tory party membership.
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