Sign up to FREE email alerts from Liverpool Echo - Weekly Politics Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Some voters stay up all night to see the results come in at election time - though most of us would rather go to bed.

But usually you can hit the hay with a reasonable idea of what you will wake up to, thanks to the exit polls.

And with Leave and Remain neck and neck in most EU referendum polls, it would be nice to go to sleep knowing if we were likely to wake up to business as normal or Brexit Britain.

Sadly, there will be no exit polls this year - mainly because this is a vote like no other.

The major broadcasters usually organise exit polling, but are not doing it this year because the margin of error is thought to be too big.

Exit polls normally use previous elections and trends to predict the outcome - and this referendum is obviously exceptional.

But the bulk of the results in councils across the country should come in between 3am and 4am - so we should start getting a better indication of the likely outcome around then.

Locally, St Helens and Knowsley council are expected to confirm their local results at around 3am, the Wirral result is expected between 3am and 4am, and the Liverpool result at around 5am.

The expected timings for Sefton and Halton councils are not yet available.

For the final result, we need to wait for every council area to finish their count, and some don’t expect to be done until around 7am.

So if you want to hear the historic verdict announced as it happens, you’re probably best setting an early alarm clock rather than staying up.