The vote also was a rebuke to President Obama, who traveled to the UK earlier this year to urge voters to stay in the EU. Obama's warning that Brits would be relegated to the “back of the queue” in trade with the U.S. if they left prompted accusations the U.S. president was meddling in another nation's politics.

Donald Trump, in Scotland Friday to visit to one of his golf courses, said Britons "took back their country. It's a great thing." He likened the vote to the U.S. sentiment that has propelled him to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, saying people in the United States and the United Kingdom are angry about similar things including unfettered immigration and trade policies that he claims cost domestic jobs.

"The people of the United Kingdom have exercised the sacred right of all free peoples," Trump said. "They have declared their independence from the European Union, and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, borders and economy."