European Union referendum polling day – as it happened

The Leave camp has a “very strong chance” of pulling off one of the biggest political upheavals of recent times, Ukip leader Nigel Farage has insisted.

Speaking outside his Kent home, Farage told PA: “Actually I do think we are in with a very strong chance, I do genuinely. But it’s all about turnout and those soft Remainers staying at home.”

View image in fullscreen

Who knows what happened in the privacy of the voting booth? Here’s video of Labour leader and reluctant remain campaigner before and after casting his vote in Islington.

“The bookies usually get it right,” Corbyn is heard to mutter, before adding “they got it wrong on me big time last year, didn’t they?”

Justice secretary and leading Leave campaigner, Michael Gove, has voted in Kensignton. He was accompanied by his wife Sarah Vine, the Daily Mail columnist who is the godmother to David Cameron’s youngest daughter. Note the Vote Leave brolley.

View image in fullscreen

23 Jun 201605.31 EDT

Saeed Kamali Dehghan

View image in fullscreen

Thorbjørn Jagland, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, said he hoped Britons would choose to stay in, but said Europe would deal with the issue in a “rational way” if the verdict was to leave, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Oslo.

“I was chairing the committee that awarded the Nobel peace prize to the European Union so the answer is evident [on where I stand] but I really hope that the UK would stay. I also believe that if we get the opposite result, Europe has to deal with it in a rational way, so Europe will survive,” he told the Guardian. “It is up to the people of United Kingdom to decide, it’s a democratic referendum, we have to respect that but I hope results would be clear,” he added.

He said the UK won’t be isolated if it decided to leave. “British islands will continue to exist and British people will continue to exist as part of Europe, so whatever happens we cannot start isolating each other in Europe once again, it would be ridiculous.”

The referendum dominated Norwegian front pages on Thursday. “Today Britain can split Europe,” read the headline of Aftenposten newspaper. The cartoon on the newspaper’s front page showed Boris Johnson trying to pull a sword out of a European stone that would make him king. “Fears that emotions will take Britain out of the EU,” read the front page headline of Dagens Næringsliv, one of the biggest newspapers in Norway.

23 Jun 201605.21 EDT

Steven Morris

Labour activists are reporting brisk early business at polling stations in the south Welsh valleys, where the party has been working hard to get the vote out in one of its traditional heartlands.

But the result in Wales is going to be fascinating following Ukip’s excellent showing at the assembly elections last month when the party took seven seats.

More than 2.2m Welsh voters are eligible to take part in the referendum and will be casting their votes at 3,578 polling stations.

Results will be declared locally in each of Wales 22 council areas – from Monmouthshire in the far south-east to the Isle of Anglesey in the north west. The overall figures will be collated and announced in Flintshire in the north-east.

The Welsh rugby great Gareth Thomas has announced that he has voted for the first time in his life – and reveals that he was heavily influenced by actor Michael Sheen and former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell. “Can always blame them,” he said in a Tweet.

View image in fullscreen

Gibraltar’s pro-remain chief minister Fabian Picardo has cast his vote. Polls suggest that 85% of the island want to remain in the EU.

Last week Picardo told the Guardian: “There is quite unprecedented unity here. Myself and all my predecessors, every political party, all the trade unions and employers’ organisations, every club, society and association … For Gibraltar, this is a slam dunk decision. Now that the leave camp has made it clear that they are not looking for Britain to remain a part of the European single market, the choice for Gibraltar has become very stark.”

In his ten things to watch Philip Cowley warned us to be careful of reports of high turn out (see earlier).

But we can’t resist having some anecdotal reports from respected sources (what else can we write about on polling day?).

Cowley is keeping a beady and wary eye on such reports.

Only two UK referendums have had higher turnouts than recent general elections, the Institute for Government Points out. These were the one on the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998 (81.1%) and on Scottish independence in 2014 (84.6%).

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon voted early.

Axel Scheffler, the illustrator behind the Gruffalo, has created an image for the Guardian to demonstrate his support for Britain remaining in the EU.

23 Jun 201604.37 EDT

Severin Carrell

Edinburgh council has reported that nearly a fifth of the city’s 345,000 voters have already submitted postal votes in the EU referendum, with more than 82% of the city’s postal voters returning their ballot paper by Wednesday evening.

The city has a high number of registered postal voters at 22%. The number returned so far does not include late submissions – postal votes can be handed into polling places on polling day. That 82% interim turnout is close to the 86% UK average for postal vote returns in the 2015 general election.