GBP/AUD is advancing in early trading on Thursday — the day when British citizens vote the parliament to decide the fate of Brexit.
Currently, one British pound buys 1.9198 Australian dollars, up 0.10% as of 5:40 AM UTC. The pair is in wait-and-see mode right now, showing little volatility. Despite the recent modest gain, the price is still following a bearish path that started Tuesday, when a YouGov poll showed that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party might not win a comfortable majority as previously thought.
Recently, another poll carried out by Savanta ComRes for The Telegraph suggested that Johnson’s lead over the opposition Labour Party had narrowed to 5% compared to the previous survey. Thus, the Tories were on 41% in the poll, while Labours were up 3% to 36%, which is the smallest lead reported by the pollster since mid-October and the best figure for the Labour Party since January.
Savanta said in a statement:
“These results indicate that this election is simply too close to call, with almost one in five who say they could possibly still change their mind and we could just as plausibly see a healthy Conservative majority as a hung parliament.”
Yesterday, the YouGov and two other opinion polls showed larger leads for Johnson’s party, though he was losing ground. Asked about the YouGov poll results, the PM said:
“This could not be more critical, it could not be tighter. I’m just saying to everybody the risk is very real that we could tomorrow be going into another hung parliament, that’s more drift, more dither, more delay, more paralysis for this country.”
The stakes of today’s election are really high. Britons are choosing between a rapid Brexit process under PM Boris Johnson or another referendum that might eventually reverse the decision to leave the bloc.
The vote is open at 07:00 AM GMT and closes at 10:00 PM GMT. An exit poll will provide the first hints of the result in the latest hour of the poll. The official results will start to come in from 11:00 PM GMT to 05:00 AM GMT.