Over 60 Per Cent Of Dutch Referendum Voters Reject EU, 32 Per Cent Turnout

Voters in the Netherlands referendum have overwhelmingly rejected the expansionist European Union (EU) in a referendum held today, though at the time of going to publish, concerns are raging about the low turnout in the plebiscite.

Polls closed at 9pm local time (8pm GMT/3pm EST), and exit polls by IPSOS and NOS have claimed the turnout was just 32 per cent, two per cent higher than the number required for the referendum to have validity.

But of those who voted in the citizen-initiative referendum, over 60 per cent reportedly voted against the EU’s association agreement with Ukraine. While the referendum is on a technical issue to do with the bloc’s relationship with Ukraine, and an inevitable EU membership for the Eastern European country, voters are said to have treated the plebiscite as a vote on their confidence in the EU and their country’s membership of it.

Sources have told Breitbart London that one of the potential reasons for a low turnout is the fact that many polling stations in the country are closed today, with some areas that have “as many as 18” polling stations during regular elections being reduced to “just 5”.

Nevertheless, the strong anti-EU sentiment at the referendum will likely spur on anti-EU campaigners in the United Kingdom which is set to have its own referendum on EU membership on June 23rd.

The NOS exit poll declared: “[A] majority of 64 percent of voters voted against the treaty. 36 percent is for. The research company Ipsos said in a first exit poll commissioned by the NOS… According to Ipsos is the attendance rate of 29 percent… But there is a margin of error of 3 percentage points…. Regarding the [final] result is that error margin of 5 percentage points.”

The number was subsequently updated to 32 per cent (+/- 3%).

The poll was instigated by a citizen-led petition of nearly half a million people who demanded to have a say on whether or not the country should back the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine, effectively a move against Russia, a move against Ukraine being an EU-Russia buffer state, and what many believe to be the next step in Ukraine’s European Union membership.

This page will be updated as news rolls in overnight.

You can catch up with Breitbart London’s live blog of the vote here.