The borough a YouGov poll described as Britain’s most Eurosceptic has cast its polls in the European Referendum and the Recorder is live at the count to being you all the latest news.
10pm: The polls have closed and the counters are waiting for the boxes to arrive. No sign of the Vote Leave or Remain teams here yet... but I’m sure they wont be long.
10.13pm The first box has arrived and the count is underway. In other news BBC Radio 4 has predicted 90per cent of the borough’s voters will have ticked the leave box. There are at least six remain supporters are on the count floor right now - we can only wait and see how well they’ve done swaying Britain’s most Euroceptic area.
11.15pm Despite the BBCs predictions Cllr Lawrence Webb, leader of Havering’s UKIP group believes about 75per cent of the borough’s residents will vote leave. Cllr Keith Darvill the leader of Havering’s two-man strong Labour is resigned to Remain doing badly in the borough but believes Remain will win across the country.
11.32pm Sam Gould of Labour In has said he does not believe Havering will have the largest majority of leave voters in the country.
Midnight Council leader Cllr Roger Ramsey has headed up to the press gallery and said he’s hoping for a leave vote but that his main concern is Havering. He hopes government will take notice and recognise local authorities can not supply services to a growing population with shrinking budgets. In other news the press snack table is attracting a lot of interest from both sides of campaigners while the counters are working exceptionally hard.
12.20am I’ve located Romford MP Andrew Rosindell intently watching the television in the leisure centre cafe. One thing he doesn’t feel he needs to worry about is the outcome in Havering – he told me he met only one person planning to vote remain at polling stations today.
12.40am The BBC have arrived (an enthusiastic council press officer has just announced) joining journalists from France and Germany to discover Havering’s results. It seems the spotlight really is falling on the borough. There may be a bit of a wait yet though only one table appears to have finished counting.
My main disappointment is the lack of patriotic outfits at the count - we had a man in a Union Jack suit at the General Election. Anyone fancy dressing up and heading down?
1.33am Just spoken to Cllr Robert Benham (leave). He’s been bitten by an insect today and has a swollen hand. He said he always gets bitten by something on an election day and its good omen. He also told me this election was like “a peasants revolt – the working classes opportunity to get back at global companies and the establishment.” He predicted that 65-70pc of Havering voters will have voted leave.
2.19am Just been confirmed that the turnout in Havering was 76per cent or 139,176 votes
2.55am We’re still counting here and those predictions of a 3am announcement will not ring true. I’m on my sixth coffee of the night but the campaigners on the floor of the count are showing no signs of flagging. They’re keenly watching the counters separate votes into trays labelled leave and remain.
3.17am The Leave campaign has taken the lead nationally and many campaigners have moved from the count floor to the cafe to watch the results come in.
Andrew Rosindell MP (leave) said: “We are one point ahead across the country but there are still 60pc of results to be declared. However the truth of it is that most remain areas have come in early and leave areas late. Many areas we have won we did not expect to win. I’m a lot more confident now than I was at the beginning of the evening but it’s still not in the bag for anybody.”
3.40am There are lot of yawning here, but one official is wearing a backwards baseball cap doing a little dance on the count floor. Not sure if she’s trying to stay awake or thinks a result is close...
3.55am I’ve just run into Andrew Rosindell who expects a result within half an hour (I’m not so sure, they’re still counting). Rumour is it looks like about 75pc of Havering voters opted to leave.
4.45am Britain has voted to leave the EU. Havering yet to declare but however the borough has voted the country will be leaving the EU
Stay tuned.
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