Shocked Eurocrats went to bed fearing the 'scrapheap' by morning

As dawn broke over a shocked Brussels, a group of European MEPs warned that last night's astonishing Brexit vote will cause the EU to ‘crumble to pieces’ within the next five years.

Their statement came as Britain voted to leave the EU, contrary to all projections by pollsters, to the bewilderment of the Eurocrats in Brussels.

'This is the beginning of the end for the EU,' Peter Lundgren, an MEP from the far-Right Sweden Democrat party, told MailOnline. 'So many other countries will follow the UK. Europe will fall.'

Shattering: European MEPs warned that last night's astonishing Brexit vote will cause the EU to ‘crumble to pieces’ within the next five years

Resign: An emotional David Cameron resigning this morning as Samantha Cameron looks on, as Brussels scrambled to make sense of Britain's decision to exit and MEPs warned Europe will crumble

European Council President Donald Tusk prepares to address a media conference at the EU Council building in Brussels today

Message for Britain: Graffiti on a wall in at a Deutsche Post location at Hallisches Ufer in Berlin after the shock Brexit result

Far right: Today French far-Right leader Marine le Pen changed her twitter symbol to the Union Jack in a sign of how Brexit will increase support for the far-Right in France

The Eurosceptic MEPs from Sweden, Germany, Italy and France said a number of governments will now be under intense pressure to hold referendums of their own, and try to renegotiate their own individual deals.

This, they said, will lead to a ‘domino effect’ in the wake of Britain's trailblazing and unprecedented decision to leave the EU.

'The EU cannot survive. It is too undemocratic, corruption is too high, the Eurocrats’ ambition is too much, there is too much money in the gravy train. ‘It makes ordinary people raving mad.

‘It’s just a matter of time,’ Lundgren said. ‘Britain has set a precedent. Other member states will follow and the whole thing will fall apart. It will happen very soon.’

Overnight, as it became apparent that Britain was turning against the EU establishment, Brussels Eurocrats gradually left the bars around the parliament building and went home to bed.

Several British apparatchiks were concerned about their livelihood, with one telling MailOnline that he was expecting 'to be on the scrapheap in the morning'.

The Commission and European Parliament buildings remained deserted, but a number of lights burned on the upper floors as a small number of desperate bureaucrats tried to lay the groundwork for a response to the most momentous event in the Union's history.

Last night's extraordinary vote was a reflection of the support for Eurosceptic parties that has been steadily growing across Europe in recent years, including for the populist and far-Right movements.

The Sweden Democrats – which started as a white supremacist party before sanitising its image – became the country’s third-largest party in 2014, and topped opinion polls last year.

Italy, Holland, Austria and other countries also have significant Eurosceptic followings, forming a wave of cynicism towards the EU and its cosseted elites

Collapse: MEPs Marco Zanni and Peter Lundgren claimed today that the European Union will now crumble

Panic: European Parliament President Martin Schultz, right, meets with presidents of political parties at the European Parliament in Brussels today amid deep shock over the Brexit result

European Council President Donald Tusk briefs the media after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Meanwhile Beatrix von Storch, right, said it was only a matter of time before the European Project fell apart

HOW BREXIT CONTAGION COULD SPREAD SWEDEN: Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Swedes wish to stay in the EU. However, when considering a Europe without Britain, surveys produce a very different result, with at least one poll showing more Swedes determined to enact a 'Swexit'. FRANCE: On Tuesday, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, called for a French referendum modelled on the British vote. ‘I would vote for Brexit, even if I think that France has 1,000 more reasons to leave than the UK,’ she said, referring to the EU as ‘decaying’. With French elections approaching, the issue is likely to become more contentious than ever. ITALY: Earlier this month, the populist Five Star movement vowed it would demand a referendum on membership of the Euro, which would lead to a full-scale vote on EU membership. Beppe Grillo, the party’s leader, said: ‘The mere fact that a country like Great Britain is holding a referendum on whether to leave the EU signals the failure of the EU.’ NETHERLANDS: According to the latest polls, most voters are in favour of a referendum on EU membership, with far-Right politicians like Geert Wilders agitating for a 'Nexit'. In the aftermath of the Brexit decision, his will be a difficult demand for the Dutch government to ignore. Advertisement

In France, the Front National is now finishing first in elections, and in Germany, Alternative Für Deutschland has more than 20,000 members.

Italy, Holland, Austria and other countries also have significant Eurosceptic followings, forming a wave of cynicism towards the EU and its cosseted elites.

Britain's vote to leave will be seen as a huge boost for the Eurosceptics and populists, who have long argued that the Brussels elite are out of touch with the will of the people. Among them are inevitably a number of far-Right parties.

‘Our support is growing all over Europe,' Lundgren said. 'The EU cannot survive. It is too undemocratic, corruption is too high, the Eurocrats’ ambition is too much, there is too much money in the gravy train.

‘It makes ordinary people raving mad. People are gradually realising what’s going on. Britain has now started the process, and Europe will be fully dismantled by another country.’

Jeppe Koford, a mainstream Danish politician who leads the Social Democrats in the European Parliament, admitted that the EU was in dire straits but thought it was ‘too early to make that judgment’.

He said: ‘It’s not the UK referendum that could make Europe fall apart. It’s the lack of solutions to problems, whether its low wages, high unemployment or the terrorist threat,’ he said.

‘These are the main drivers of disintegration, if we’re not strong enough.’

But Beatrix von Storch, an MEP from Germany’s Alternative Für Deutschland, argued that Britain’s stunning decision would ‘start a process that can’t be stopped’, and had turned the EU upside down.

‘Let’s not forget that even those who voted to remain didn’t like the EU much,’ she said. ‘Remain campaigners kept repeating “the EU is not perfect”. They didn’t passionately believe in it, they have just been scared into supporting it.

‘Cameron’s renegotiation was going towards the Eurosceptic side, showing that even the people who are too scared to vote to leave the EU want less of it.’

MEPs predict Brexit is the 'beginning of the end' and several countries will follow suit and hold a referendum, including Sweden, Germany and Italy

Cash crash: The FTSE opened 8 per cent down today as traders ran in fright from the shock Brexit result. Above, a trader sits in front of his screens, one which displays the rate of the British pound which drops against the US dollar

The EU's failure to find solutions to the economic crisis, migration crisis and security crisis have all been blamed for the growing mistrust in Brussels

This, she said, reflected a Europe-wide disaffection with the EU that is growing year by year. ‘The process of the end has begun,’ she said. ‘Something has been started in Europe, and it cannot be stopped. Once one country is out, Europe will fall.’

Lundgren and von Storch are part of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy bloc, a populist grouping in the European Parliament containing many Ukip MEPs, including Nigel Farage.

Their analysis was questioned by the anti-extremism expert Vidhya Ramalingham, fellow at the German Institute on Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation Studies and Director of Moonshot CVE.

‘It’s an apocalyptic scenario which may not come about,’ she said. ‘It plays into the narrative that they are trying to promote. It’s fear mongering.’

She argued that the assumption that Europe would fall in response to Brexit was simply a way to sow division inside the EU. 'It suits the Eurosceptic parties to make as much of it as possible,' she said. 'But the EU is stronger than that.'

Vote Leave supporters celebrate as a landslide victory in Sunderland points to final result - a win for Brexit

Cheers: Brexit supporters can't contain their excitement as Britain votes Leave and triggers calls for a wave of similar referendums across Europe

Shock: The Remain camp is distraught as Brexit voters outnumber Remain by more than a million

But Marco Zanni, an Italian MEP from the Five Star movement who is also a member of the bloc, said that there were good reasons to predict the downfall of the EU.

He told MailOnline that the EU is facing 'three crises at once': the economic crisis, which has seen a bailout of Greece and deleterious growth across southern European countries; the migration crisis, which has caused the de facto suspension of the Schengen arrangement; and the security crisis, in which major attacks in Brussels and Paris have claimed hundreds of lives.

‘In each and every case, the EU is showing that it cannot solve these problems. It simply does not have the solutions, and people are getting fed up with it,' he said.

‘In Italy, polls show disaffection with the EU skyrocketing. The majority is still in favour, but it is close to 50-50.

‘Italians are already agitating for a referendum. Last year, two hundred thousand Italians signed a petition demanding a referendum on our membership of the Euro, but it wasn’t granted.

‘The British referendum has given Italians an ambition to have a referendum as well.

‘There will be too much tension to hold the EU together. ‘It will collapse within the next 10 years.’

In France, the far-right National Front celebrated a Brexit ‘Victory’ and said it threatened the disintegration of the entire European project.

Marine Le Pen, the National Front (FN) leader, said the historic European Union vote was a clear indication the 28-nation bloc was ‘decaying’.

Calling for a referendum in her own country, and anticipating other exits across the EU, she said: ‘Victory for liberty!

‘As I’ve asked for many years, it is now necessary to have the same referendum in France and in the European Union.’

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, another member of the Le Pen dynasty and an FN MP, also tweeted ‘Victory!’

What now: MEPs said disaffection with the EU was 'skyrocketing'

The Le Pens, including the convicted racist and anti-Semite MEP and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, are fiercely anti-Europe.

They view an end to the EU as the best way of implementing their anti-immigration and anti-globalisation agenda.

Other parties in France, including the governing Socialists, were overwhelmingly shocked and saddened by the result.

President Francois Hollande had made it clear that a leave vote was ‘irreversible’, and that there will now be ‘extremely serious consequences’ for the UK.

Under the headline ‘The Immediate consequences for Britons’, L’Express said the millions who visit France from the UK every year would now need a visa.

Holidays on the continent will also be ‘more expensive’, and expats including retired people living in France will see agreements on their health treatment and other benefits scrapped.

Thousands of French people living and working in the UK will be reassessing their futures, along with Britons based in France.

L’Express also warned of more ‘frontiers going up’ around Europe, including one between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Newspapers like Le Monde, meanwhile, highlighted ‘the collapse of Sterling’ and ‘panic in the markets’.

It described a ‘deeply divided’ Britain, with ‘large differences between the old and the young’.

Le Monde adds: ‘The focus on immigration, which has risen sharply, could accentuate the fractures in a country, also marked by a widening gap in wealth between the poor and the wealthy.’

Le Point also warned of a ‘domino effect’, saying the ‘terrible blow to the European project and the prime minister, David Cameron’ would have lasting negative effects.