2nd LD: Leave camp wins Britain's Brexit vote: official

The Leave camp has won Britain's Brexit referendum on Friday morning by obtaining nearly 52 percent of ballots, pulling the country out of the 28-nation European Union (EU) after its 43-year membership.

With ballots from all the 382 polling stations have been counted, chief counting officer of the Electoral Commission announced that around 17.4 million people voted for Brexit while 16.1 million others chose to to stay at the bloc.

The turnout at the referendum was 72.2 percent.

But the process of leaving will not be immediately started and would take a long time, British media reported.

Final results showed Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU, Wales and England in favor of Leaving.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who had led the campaign to keep Britain in the EU, said shortly after the results that he would step down by October.

"I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers the country to its next destination," Cameron told media outside his Downing Street office.

He left it to his successor to decide whether to invoke Article 50, which sets out the procedural requirements for a member states to end its membership.

Britain has become the first country to quit in the bloc's 60-year history, a culmination of decades of suspicion over European aims of creating an ever-closer political union.

Global financial market plunged over fears that the quit will hit economy and social stability in the world fifth largest economy. Endi