The price of gold surged in the early hours of the morning as it became clearer that the British public had voted to leave the European Union .

The precious metal rallied as much as 8.1pc to nearly $1,360 an ounce, its highest since March 2014, after dipping as low as $1,255 an ounce after voting closed last night.

It is has since tiptoed back from that high, but is up still up 4.96pc at $1,319.40.

Adrian Ash at online gold trading platform BullionVault.com commented: "The surging gold price clearly shows the panic sweeping financial markets."

By 11am London time, BullionVault users had traded £23.5m of vaulted gold and silver since midnight - more than two weeks’ worth of average trading in 2015. New account openings by 11am were already twice this year’s daily average, it added.