BBC delayed Brexit vote announcement regardless of ‘completely apparent outcomes’

The BBC delayed asserting news that Britons had voted for Brexit till political chiefs have been utterly sure of the outcomes, David Dimbleby has mentioned.

The legendary broadcaster mentioned he was conscious the votes have been following a trajectory predicted by detailed analyses, and the result was clear earlier than the BBC allowed the published.

He claimed he was held again from making the announcement on June 23 regardless of the growing readability that the outcomes closely favoured the go away vote.

Speaking to the News Agents podcast, he mentioned the “fastidious” broadcasters needed to attend till it was “absolutely impossible for it to be wrong”.

And he revealed that his landmark speech asserting the end result was made up on the spot, regardless of the intensive preparation that had gone into their calculation.

Mr Dimbleby mentioned that BBC is “very fastidious about any results of a democratic vote”, and that election specialist John Curtice “wouldn’t allow us to say for certainty” regardless of it being “perfectly obvious what was happening”.

He added that he was pleading with the director to announce the result throughout the early hours of June 23.

He mentioned: “I kept talking from the thing to the director saying ‘Can’t we say it now, come on, it’s four in the morning for God’s sake, it’s perfectly obvious what’s happening?’

”‘No, no, just hang on, just hang on’.”

The broadcaster additionally criticised the accusation that his eventual announcement “produced a moment of finality”.

Mr Dimbleby famously revealed the outcomes at 4.40am on the day, declaring that the UK had reversed its choice to affix the Common Market after “weeks and months of argument and dispute and all the rest of it”.

He resolutely concluded his speech by saying: “The British people have spoken and the answer is: ‘We’re out’.”

Now – greater than seven years after the vote – Mr Dimbleby would seem right to say his phrases did not point out the UK’s exit was over.

Earlier this week, ministers delayed the imposition of post-Brexit checks and prices on meals imported from the EU, the fifth of its sort.

The delay got here with the Government’s acknowledgement that the extra prices and purple tape would add 0.2 % to inflation and creates a brand new introduction date of the tip of April 2024.