Richard Harris, Professor of Quantitative Social Geography, University of Bristol
The results are in and the people have spoken: by a margin of 51.9% to 48.1%, the UK has voted to leave the EU.
Throughout the night and into this morning, commentators have talked of regional differences, noting, for example, higher-than-expected votes to leave in the Midlands but also much stronger support to remain in London. The situation was described at various points as one of “London and Scotland Vs. the rest.”
Is this actually true? To some degree, yes. But it is not quite the full story.
The election results are counted by local authorities. Havering, Dudley, Cornwall, Wakefield and Doncaster are the places where the shares of the total leave votes most greatly exceed their shares of the total electorate. At the other end of the voting spectrum, Northern Ireland, Glasgow City, Edinburgh, Lambeth, Manchester and Wandsworth are the places where the shares of the leave votes are lowest in comparison to their electorate.