Google Analytics showing 301 redirect as referral

Question

I have universal analytics installed on my site. The .htaccess file does a location-based 301 redirect. Here is what happens:

www.mysite.com redirects to www.mysite.com/uk if the user is based in the UK. The same happens for .fr and .de.

In analytics I have added mysite.com to the referral exclusion list however analytics is still putting out mysite.com as the referrer for my traffic.

Here's my GA snippet:

    (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
  (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
  m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
  })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

  ga('create', 'UA-12345678-1', 'mysite.com');
  ga('send', 'pageview');

The create event part was set to 'auto' instead of specifically naming the domain as it is above, however that made no difference.

I've asked many people and many experts and none have the solution. Any help out there?