Wymington Village Hall	Queen Street Wesleyan Schoolroom	Whitefriars School
Highfield Baptist Church	Irchester Village Hall	Rushden & Higham Rugby Club

Voting took place in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave. A record 46,499,537 people were able to cast their vote which took place on Thursday 23rd June 2016, according to figures released from the Electoral Commission.

Polling stations up & down the land were open from 07.00-22.00, and voting had been steady through the day with the turn out a healthy 72%, the weather was mostly drizzly & humid, with a temperature of 20C. In parts of London heavy localised flooding had caused big problems at some polling stations.

It was only the third nationwide referendum in UK history, and came after four months of battles for votes between the leave & remain campaigns. Both sides had big names heading up their efforts, including Prime Minister David Cameron, former prime ministers in the shape of John Major (Tory), Gordon Brown (Labour), and Tony Blair, (labour), the current Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, leader of the SNP in Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, & and current Labour head Jeremy Corbyn.

On the leave side were former mayor of London Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage leader of UKIP, and Priti Patel.

Our local Tory MP's were founder members of the leave campaign, these included Peter Bone, (Wellingborough & Rushden), Philip Hollobone, (Kettering), and Corby representative Tom Pursglove.

The first one was back in 1975, when the country was asked whether the UK should continue to be a member of what was then called the European Economic Community, (Common Market).

We were taken in two years earlier by Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath.

The prime minister in 1975 was labour supremo Harold Wilson. The question asked was "Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community" (the Common Market)?

That ended up with a split of 67% for staying in, against 33% wishing to come out.

So moving on to this crucial 2016 show-down, the final result of the in or out referendum was announced at 07.20 on Friday 24th June, from Manchester town hall, and it was decided that the UK would leave the European Union within two years.

Local voting was Northampton 59% to 41% to leave, Kettering 61% to 39% for leaving, Wellingborough went 62% to 38% to leave, and Rushden which was in ENDC decided that 59% to 41% of people wanted to come out.

The Rushden count was conducted at the Pemberton Sports Centre off of Highfield Road.

As a result of the ballot Prime Minister David Cameron fell on his sword at a press conference in Downing Street at 08.30 on Friday 24th, 2016. He stressed that he would do everything in his power to make a smooth transition for a replacement to be in place for the Tory conference in October at Birmingham.

Shown here are the polling stations at Irchester village hall, the Wesleyan Church Rooms in Queen Street, Whitefriars school, Rushden Rugby Club, Highfield Road Church, and Wymington village hall.

Paul Wright, 3rd Feb 2020 "Brexit" was originally meant to have happened on 29 March 2019, but the deadline was delayed twice after our MPs rejected the deal negotiated by Mrs Theresa May, the Prime Minister at the time. Many Conservative MPs and the DUP (the government's then ally in Parliament) were unhappy with the so called backstop - arguing that the UK could remain trapped in the arrangement for years with no way out. After MPs voted down the deal for a third time, Mrs May decided to resign. Her position was taken by Mr Boris Johnson who needed a Brexit extension of his own after MPs failed to get the revised deal passed into law. With Parliament still in deadlock, Mr Johnson called an early general election, to which MPs agreed. The election, which happened on 12 December 2019, resulted in a healthy Conservative majority of 80. With that sizeable majority in Parliament, it proved straight forward to pass the Brexit legislation. The UK officially left the European Union on Friday 31st January 2020, at 23:00 GMT, after 47 years of membership, and more than three years after it voted to do so in a referendum. North of the border, the locals were not so enthusiastic to be leaving the EU, and the Scottish National Party (SNP), was still calling for their own independence. There is to be an eleven month period, during this period, the UK will remain in both the EU customs union and single market. The transition (sometimes called the implementation period) is due to last until 31 December 2020.

January 2st 2021, Paul Wright After three and a half very bumpy years, the United Kingdom has finally started a new era, after it completed its formal separation from the European Union at 23.00 on New Year's Eve 2020. Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivered this after replacing two former Prime Ministers, the first being David Cameron, and then Theresa May. One thing that some people may have missed?, that is the fact that Duty-free shopping has now returned, with people coming back to the UK from the EU able to bring up to 42 litres of beer, 18 litres of wine, four litres of spirits and 200 cigarettes without paying tax.