Britain’s bitter Brexit divide is starkly revealed in two maps which show how Leave and Remain nations would look if the country were sliced apart along the lines of the referendum.
More than two years after the 2016 ballot the country remains at odds over Europe, with heated political battles over the shape of a Brexit deal as the March 29 exit day draws nearer.
In recent months the campaign for a second referendum or ‘People’s Vote’ has gathered momentum with half a million people marching through central London to demand one last month.
The maps, created by Esri UK, reveal exactly how the two Britains would look if Remain and Leave were left unable to talk to each other.
A nation made up of Leave-voting areas is a robust nation retaining most of the English mainland, especially in the Midlands, the North and the South West. However it is eroded by huge lakes reflecting stronger support for Remain in cities
Leave-land is a robust nation made up of most of the English mainland, with a solid trunk in the Midlands, the former industrial heartlands of the North and large parts of Wales.
The North East is preserved in the new Brexit nation, including Sunderland whose huge vote for Leave was the defining moment of election night, although a large lake lies where Newcastle, with its narrow vote for Remain, once stood.
The South West and East Anglia have also been left largely intact, reflecting large votes for Brexit in places such as Castle Point, Essex, which with 75.6 per cent had the third-highest Leave vote of any local authority.
However the south of Leave nation has been eroded by huge new waterways reflecting stronger support for Remain in cities, carving most of London and much of the Home Counties out of the country.
Ships arriving at Brighton could enter the ‘Middlesex Sea’ and navigate all the way to Swindon in the west before hitting dry land.
The layout reflects the feelings of many Brexit voters that London and the politicians based there represented an out-of-touch elite.
The capital itself had some of the highest Remain votes in the country, including 78.6 per cent in Lambeth and 78.5 per cent in Hackney.
Meanwhile the Remainers’ new nation is anchored by Scotland, where all 32 council areas voted to stay in the EU in the 2016 referendum.
It also includes the greater part of Northern Ireland, where a fairly comfortable vote for Remain has been followed by months of messy negotiations over the future of the border with the Republic.
Remain-land is anchored by Scotland, where every local authority supported EU membership, and large chunks of Northern Ireland. The
Beyond that Remain-land is a sprawling island nation, with its largest English landmass made up of London – where 27 out of 32 boroughs voted to Remain.
The largest London-based island parts of nearby counties such as Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, which also backed continued EU membership.
However it does not include Watford, which was the narrowest victory for Leave at 23,419 votes (50.3 per cent) for Brexit compared to 23,167 (49.7 per cent) to stay.
Further north Remain hangs on to densely populated islands in the North West, including central Manchester and much of the county of Merseyside.
Liverpool, Wirral and Sefton voted to stay in, making Merseyside the only modern English county outside the south to vote Remain.
However not all urban areas were pro-Remain, with Birmingham and Sheffield the most prominent cities to vote Leave, albeit narrowly.
The ‘Great Britain Ocean’ in the West Midlands, the Yorkshire Shallows, the Sea of Humber and the North Sea Gulf mark out the huge chunks of land where Remain could not persuade voters to back the status quo.
And Remain would hang on to Gibraltar too, as 96 per cent of voters in the territory near Spain voted to stay in the EU.
In all Leave-land has a population of 41 million people spanning 51,223 square miles, while ‘Remain Land’ is much more sparsely populated with only 21 million people living in 45,982 square miles, taking into account the vast size of Scotland.
On the day of the referendum Leave won with 17.4million votes, or 51.9 per cent, compared to Remain’s total of 16.1million, or 48.1 per cent.