Waiting for the results

That's based on including old polls. An average depends upon how you draw up the average.

Looking at the final polls for each pollster the Remain lead was as follows:
Populus Online Remain +10
Comres Phone Remain +8
ORB Phone Remain +8
BMG Phone Remain +7.6
Ipsos MORI Phone Remain +4
YouGov Online Remain +2
Survation Phone Remain +1
Opinium Online Leave (-1.3)
TNS Online Leave (-2.4)

There was a heavy swing towards Remain in the final days, which was what common experience had expected a swing to the status quo. The pollsters mucked that up.

Two possible explanations are that either the postal ballots before a late swing were missed by the pollsters (I doubt that) or that there were Shy Leavers quite possible caused by heavy slandering of Leavers as racists especially following the murder of Jo Cox. Given that the biggest errors (excluding Populus) were with the Phone Pollsters that's quite plausible.

Or because this was a unique election where the pollsters had no idea how to make adjustments to the raw polling figures, which is what many of these people were saying to start with.

In a general election poll, you do a poll and you find out 40% of the respondents are Tories and 30% are Labourites. You know that in the population, those numbers are 35% and 35%. You weigh both sets of results and you end up with a more reliable poll. If you you get the same raw figures in this poll, you have no idea how to make the adjustments because people aren't voting on the basis of party ID. Turnout figures are also impossible predict (and the predictions seems to be well off base).

Which would be a considered argument if the pollsters had not right royally fucked up the last General Election. The pollsters were desperate to recover some credibility they lost last year, however tonight ends up finishing they haven't done that.

Like I said, it was pure guesswork.

RB, can you please link to the place you found a number for the average of polls?

This is where I got the finall polling numbers from.

With exactly 50% of constituencies declared (not all equal sized so doesn't mean 50% of the population) Leave are 0.5 million in the lead.

Given most of Scotland, most of London and Liverpool have declared I don't see Remain coming back. It's over. I'm shocked, utterly shocked.

Yes, Leave is on pace for a 1-1.5 million victory margin. I wonder how long before the Scots ask for another referendum.

Is there a reason the Scots, Irish, and Welsh counted nearly all their votes while most English constituencies are yet to report?

Bigger councils in England. More to count.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Yes, Leave is on pace for a 1-1.5 million victory margin. I wonder how long before the Scots ask for another referendum.

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Glory be if we can rid ourselves of the pesky picts.

As much as I'll miss my money I must say this is very exciting and the postmortem will be interesting to say the least

If you mean in terms of polling, we won't learn anything. This elections is too unique and there won't be another one like it.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

As much as I'll miss my money I must say this is very exciting and the postmortem will be interesting to say the least

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Indeed we live in interesting times. Hopefully I'm right and the "experts"* are wrong and we can forge a path that other sceptical nations like Sweden and maybe even Hazir's own Netherlands can follow.

* Excluding Sir James Dyson, the former Governor of the Bank of England, the former head of the CBI, the former Prime Minister of Canada, the former Prime Minister of Australia etc

Murdoch called it all along.
http://s3.foxmovies.com/foxmovies/pr...ay_Thumb_1.jpg

Stop it, I don't want nightmares about a Swedish referendum. You have no idea what this referendum will do for the rise of racism in this country.

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Originally Posted by Loki

If you mean in terms of polling, we won't learn anything. This elections is too unique and there won't be another one like it.

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I've certainly learned a lesson about not making overly confident predictions based on dubious assumptions about dubious data :o

American pollsters who've been keeping tabs on this referendum have been saying that for weeks.

For what it's worth, I'd like to restate that while I'm cautiously optimistic about this victory I was 100% for Remain only 12 month ago - and I was convinced we'd win a remain vote by 2:1. The campaign for remain that has been fought deserves this defeat. Hazir may think I hate the EU, nothing could be further from the truth, I respected the EU as a trade organisation but not as a political union. There should have been a compromise available to Cameron to achieve that. The stubborn refusal of the EU to bend to popular demand of British citizens has cost the EU one of its biggest net contributers. It has cost the EU the nation that will be the biggest single European economy by the end of the 2030s. I wonder how clever Merkel and co think they were now in refusing to grant us concessions a couple of months ago?

BBC has officially called it for Leave now. David Dimbleby "the decision of 1975 to remain in the EEC has been reversed, the BBC can now say there is no way this tally can be reversed, as a nation "we're out"".

Considering how absent of any real facts this campaign was, I doubt extra concessions would have made any difference.

I know a lot of people (myself included) who were shocked and upset by the refusal to have any reform at all worth its name. That demonstrated the EU to be a failing and unreformable state. A bad reform that could have been followed up with further reforms would have been infinitely better than zero reforms with a clear unwillingness to ever reform.

Given how close this victory for Leave is, winning what should have been easy Remain voters like myself and others would have led to an easy Remain victory.

And now you can go right on back to pretending it's still 1955.

Or we can move on from the EU that is despairing a generation to 50% youth unemployment and build a true 21st century future. Your negative arguments would carry more weight if the EU was working.

Are you going to blame the EU for dictatorship in China and terrorism in Nigeria, too?

Britain Stands Alone

Bravo to the people of the United Kingdom for standing-up for free markets, free movement and freedom from the growing leviathan state.

The next few years will not be easy, but the British are taking an bold and gutsy stand to define the value of modern nationhood and how modern nations interact with their neighbors.

Yeah, Europe has been too friendly and peaceful recently. Better to go back to the time of modern nationhood when millions got slaughtered every few decades.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Are you going to blame the EU for dictatorship in China and terrorism in Nigeria, too?

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No but we can blame the EU for the catastrophic failures within the EU in recent years. Time for Britain to regain its mantle not as a recalcitrant follower in this project but in leading a more hopeful and positive alternative path to the future.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Britain Stands Alone

Bravo to the people of the United Kingdom for standing-up for free markets, free movement and freedom from the growing leviathan state.

The next few years will not be easy, but the British are taking an bold and gutsy stand to define the value of modern nationhood and how modern nations interact with their neighbors.

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Well said.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

As much as I'll miss my money I must say this is very exciting and the postmortem will be interesting to say the least

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I agree, I also hope that our leaders stop appeasing the Brits since that would certainly mean the end of the EU.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

I agree, I also hope that our leaders stop appeasing the Brits since that would certainly mean the end of the EU.

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I don't think there will be anyone to appease for the foreseeable future. Prepare for months of backstabbing and intrigue in London, quite possibly a change to the law to allow an early election, an attempt to integrate UKIP into the Conservative party, and Scottish calls for a new independence referendum. British leaders will be far too busy with internal problems to negotiate with the EU. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Brits don't invoke Article 50 for a year or longer.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

I agree, I also hope that our leaders stop appeasing the Brits since that would certainly mean the end of the EU.

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You say that as if it'd automatically be a bad thing ...

The EU should be a good thing, but as many have said here recently "a club that try's to prevent you from leaving is not a club I want to be a member of". The EU should be confident enough in its own abilities to both offer Britain a responsible and positive Brexit alternative AND ensure that fellow European nations choose to stay in the EU not out of fear, but because it's the right thing to do.

The EU screwed up a few months ago failing to give Britain a renegotiation worth its salt when Cameron gave it the chance to do so. If the EU's leaders wake up this morning wondering "how do we prevent contagion" rather than calmly and positively wondering how to best proceed then it is clear the EU is failing to see the woods for the trees.

Didn't you claim Britain got what it wanted from those negotiations at the time? :confused:

No I said that Britain should get what it wants. Disappointing that Hazir was right and I was wrong about the EU's inflexibility. Now the EU faces a wake up call, if it continues to be inflexible and throw away the opportunity for reform then it deserves the fate of the USSR, but I hope the EU can wake up and build a positive future even without us.