LONDON-Voters headed to polling booths across the U.K. on Thursday, casting their ballots in a historic referendum on leaving the European Union that pits a vision of Britain untethered and resurgent against bleak predictions of economic turbulence and global insecurity.
After months of campaigning, pollsters say the outcome of the vote istoo close to call. The ballot asks a simple question: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
But a vote to split off will raise many complex questions about how the country will disentangle itself from a relationship stretching back more than four decades.
The referendum has pitted longtime political allies against each other and unleashed emotional debate over the issue of immigration. It has also generated finger-pointing in all directions so sharp that it has raised soul-searching questions about the tenor of U.K. politics. A week before the vote, campaigning was suspended for more than two days after a Member of Parliament, who campaigned aggressively for the remain camp, was killed in a brutal attack in northeast England.
Most polls show a virtual dead heat between the pro-EU “remain” campaign and the “Brexit” camp, shorthand for those advocating Britain’s exit from the 28-nation bloc. But pollsters say thousands of voters won’t make up their minds until they are in the polling booth, even after months of fractious campaigning.
Prime Minister David Cameron and senior politicians from across the ideological spectrum have campaigned hard to convince fellow citizens that voting to stay is the only sensible option. Business leaders, economists, security chiefs and even cultural luminaries have lined up in recent weeks to warn that Brexit poses gratuitous risks to the country’s future.
Spearheading the call for Britons to leave the 28-nation bloc are Boris Johnson, the charismatic former mayor of London, and Michael Gove, long a close political ally of Mr. Cameron’s, who both argue that the U.K. would be better-off freed from the burdensome and costly regulations imposed by EU membership. Advocates for Brexit also argue that leaving would be the only way for Britain to curb rising immigration from other EU states.
For Mr. Cameron, the most vocal cheerleader for Britain to stay in the EU, the referendum could also decide his place in history. A campaign promise in 2013 to put the question of Europe to voters could cost Mr. Cameron his job if “Leave” wins, even after he led the Conservative Party to its best general election showing in more than two decades last May.
Turnout will be crucial to determining the outcome. Election officials say the largest number of voters in the country’s history will be eligible to vote, though analysts are divided on how many of the more than 46 million people eligible to cast a ballot will actually do so. Predictions range between 55% and 65% of voters to turn up at more than 41,000 locations across the U.K. and Gibraltar by the time polling closes at 10 p.m. U.K. time (5 p.m. EDT). The result of the referendum is expected to be announced around early Friday local time.

Source: Wall street Journal, 23 June 2016