UPDATE - Mixed initial results as Brexit votes counted

UPDATES WITH MORE RESULTS, CRITICISM OF DAVID CAMERON

LONDON (AA) – The outcome of Britain’s EU referendum hung in the balance as vote counting continued early Friday.

With a quarter of 382 voting areas reporting, the two sides were separated by a few thousand votes. By 3 a.m. local time (0200GMT), the Leave campaign had amassed 3.9 million votes against Remain a 3.7 million.

The pro-Brexit side established an early dominance in northeast England, traditionally a Eurosceptic area, where the city of Newcastle only narrowly supported EU membership and the nearby town of Sunderland voting by a 61 percent to 39 percent margin in favor of leaving the 28-nation bloc.

Districts in Scotland were reporting strong support for Britain’s EU membership, with cities including Dundee voting for Remain.

The first results from Northern Ireland also suggested backing for Remain, although initial results in Wales pointed to a swing toward Brexit as Swansea – the region’s second largest city – voted by a narrow margin of 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent in favor of Leave.

But in a boost for the Remain campaign, the London region of Lambeth voted by a crushing margin of 78.6 percent in favor of continued EU membership.

As the outcome remained too close to call, U.K. politicians began attacking Prime Minister David Cameron for holding the referendum.

Vince Cable, a former Liberal Democrat in the party’s coalition with Cameron’s Conservatives, said the decision to call the vote was a mistake.

“Clearly there are circumstances in which you do need a referendum, you have major constitutional change, we’ve always accepted that, but this wasn’t such an issue. It was a way of resolving an impasse within the Conservative Party,” he told the BBC on Friday.

Cable added that he did not see how Cameron could stay as premier if the U.K. votes to Leave, given his call for a Remain vote.

“If his party do persuade him to stay on his authority is completely gone and I’d have thought any sense of self-respect would make him want to go, so if we are talking about a Leave win, even if it is a very small one, I think, I feel that his day’s now gone,” he said.

But speaking on the same program, Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb backed Cameron, saying it was too early to draw conclusions about the referendum.