The UK was plunged into a full-scale constitutional crisis after it voted to leave the EU, David Cameron stood down as prime minister and Scotland’s first minister said a second referendum on independence was now “highly likely”.Britons voted by 51.9 per cent to sever the UK’s 43-year membership of the EU, sending shockwaves across Europe and triggering financial market turmoil across the globe. Mr Cameron said he would remain in office for the next few months to “steady the ship” while the Conservative party chose a new leader but that Britain needed “fresh leadership” to take it in the new direction chosen by voters.The result represented the biggest political upheaval in Britain in living memory, dismayingallies and pitching the country into a period of intense political and economic uncertainty. The scale of the problems confronting the British government were immediately laid bare when Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, which voted to stay in the EU, said a second vote on independence “is on the table” two years after the last plebiscite.London also ran into immediate resistance from Brussels. EU leaders said there would be no renegotiation of Britain’s membership terms and demanded that London swiftly engage in exit talks and invoke article 50 of the EU treaties, which sets a two-year deadline. EU officials said their warning was not aimed at Mr Cameron but at his successor, who is expected to take over by October.George Osborne, chancellor, is expected to stay in his job until October to help stabilise the economic situation. His allies said that “cabinet will continue” and that they did not expect him to move from the Treasury in the near future. Boris Johnson, who spearheaded the Leave campaign and is now favourite to take over as Tory leader, paid tribute to Mr Cameron as a “brave and principled man” but insisted holding the referendum was “right and inevitable”. “The EU was a noble idea for its time. It is no longer right for this country,” Mr Johnson said. After rallying all week on hopes that Britain would stay, markets were stunned by the referendum outcome.
