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Leave Set to Win UK's EU Referendum. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired June 24, 2016 - 01:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Welcome back. It is 6:00 a.m. here in London, and the country is waking up to a very different reality, a different world to the one they left behind yesterday.

Welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world as we witness history unfold. The message from the British public is loud and clear. We want to leave the European Union. I'm Hala Gorani.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: I'm Richard Quest. I'm just going to call up the national total so you can see how it's going so far. There you have it, 51.7 percent for leave, 48 percent voting to remain. And Hala, I'll give you in a minute the numbers of actually that we still have the actual totals of about 32 million people that have voted so far.

GORANI: All right, now 90 percent of districts have reported. The leave campaign is ahead by more than one million votes. It performed better than expected in a lot of regions across England and Wales. It is news that has made U.K. independence party leader Nigel Farage jubilant. He said let June 23rd go down in history as independence day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIGEL FARAGE, UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY LEADER: Ladies and gentlemen, dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom.

(CHEERS)

(APPLAUSE)

FARAGE: If the predictions now are right, this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: Nigel Farage a short while ago. There are just about nine more counting areas to report tonight. It is over. I mean, let there be no doubt about that. In Downing Street, the Prime Minister, who will be not have slept during the course of the night, will be wondering what on earth to do next.

Max Foster is in the Prime Minister's residence. Phil Black is in (inaudible). Overwhelmingly, Scotland voted to remain in the -- not overwhelmingly, unanimously pretty much in terms of counting areas.

Max, we start with you in Downing Street.

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's going to have to come out in the next hour, isn't he? Because the markets are tanking as they are. The markets open at the top of the hour, and his priority is to create some reassurance for them, some stability.

The last thing they need right now is more uncertainty. The markets need to know what David Cameron's thoughts are. So he's going to have to come out and say something before 8:00 local time. We've just gone past 7:00 right now. That's the priority.

Is his position unturnable? That's the bigger question. We can assume that he's in some sort of negotiation with the other side. The key players there are Boris Johnson, Gisela Stuart and Michael Gove. As well.

Sorry 6:00 now. We have two hours until the market opens. So he's going to appear in the next two hours. You can assume that.

He has to have some sort of conversation with the other side. They no doubt will be negotiating with him about his position. Whether or not he does negotiate, whether or not he does come out and say he's not going to resign, that's part of the negotiation. This is all we have to see. But the priority very much is about whether or not he can reassure markets.

And there's a much bigger story going on here in Europe, of, course as well. We're seeing the Euro come down against the dollar. The market's questioning the European project.

But also here in the U.K., is it a thing anymore? You've got the situation where London and Scotland voted for the European Union. Scotland wants to be the European Union, and there are many independents there as well pushing for independence there.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland calling for a referendum on Irish independence as well. So this is having huge political and financial ramifications all focused on that door behind me, and he has to speak very soon.

GORANI: All right, Max Foster, thanks very much. Markets open in London in two hours. And we are expecting, by the way, Richard, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, to make a statement before the markets open. It's going to be very important for him to try to instill some sense of confidence that everything is not going pear shaped, at least on the currency market.

And in Scotland, as we were mentioning, you're going to bring up the map?

QUEST: Look at the map of Scotland, and you really do see something extraordinary compared to --

GORANI: Yes. QUEST: -- the map of the United Kingdom. There is not, I don't

believe, one counting area north of the Scottish border that went for leave.

And now Phil Black is in Scotland. He's in Edinburgh where I guess they're just about planning when to ask for the next referendum.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Definitely thinking about it, Richard, I think. And you can tell that from a statement that the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has already released this morning.

This statement, she describes the Scottish vote is decisive, strong, unequivocal. She says the Scottish people have made it clear that they see their future within the European Union. So those words matter, because the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, recently went to a local election for the Scottish Parliament, and her policy on this issue was that in the event that Scotland gets pulled out of the European Union against its wishes, well, that would trigger reasonable grounds to yet again begin the process of holding a referendum on Scottish independence.

It was only in September 2014 that Scotland last voted on this. The result then was 55 percent in favor of staying with the United Kingdom. Forty-five percent wanted to go it alone. But the point is that the nationalists on that occasion lost. They will be unwilling to risk that again.

So that degree of cautiousness will affect the timetable here. What you will see and hear, I think, will be, as we're already beginning hear, all the right sounds that suggest Scotland will start this conversation all over again. But the Scottish government, Nicola Sturgeon, will not want to lock themselves into a referendum until they are certain it is one they will win.

QUEST: Phil Black, who is in Edinburgh. And that's very much they wanted their referendum on their time, and now, of course, that decision may have been taken away from them because of the vote nationally.

GORANI: All right, certainly Scotland overwhelmingly voted to remain part of the E.U., so we'll see how that pans out. Let's go -- where are we going to next?

QUEST: Westminster.

GORANI: Westminster, Christiane Amanpour is there. Christiane?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, look, we've had one guest after the other talking to us about what this will mean, particularly in terms of integration with Europe, how they will actually sort out behind me in Parliament a way forward for this government for some government to lead the way forward and then what they will be doing in terms of trying to negotiate new deals with Europe.

Obviously, the Brexitters want to do it slowly and as calmly as possible. Will Europe allow that? Will there be a slow, calm transition? What we know is that nothing is going to change between this declared vote and tomorrow or the next day. This is going to be a fairly long process. But how long will they get to actually start what's called the divorce process by invoking Article 50 of the clause that denotes how one separates in the instance?

But I think, you know, everybody is watching this. It's not just in Britain. It's not just in Europe, but it's in the United States, as well. Everybody is watching and was watching this vote to see and to gauge the measure of the strength of populist, you know, nationalist parties, which are sweeping the board around so many countries. So that's one thing.

And everybody is going to be scratching their head, because never has an argument been so one-sided. Here in Britain, all the other parties, of course, a division within the ruling conservative party, but all the other political parties wanted to remain in.

As we've been saying over and over again throughout this campaign, the preponderance of expert and independent opinion has been that Britain should stay in on every level from scientific to academic to economic to political to environmental to security to defense, in every walk of life, including sports, people have been saying the best for the U.K. is to remain in Europe. But half the British people just didn't buy it.

So here we have a divided country, and what we also have right now is the most polarizing and the most divisive of all political leaders, the U.K. independence party's Nigel Farage has so far been speaking for this victory. And we don't know how much of a role he's going to have in further public life and what that will mean.

In his victory statement, you heard him very well say this is a victory for -- what did he say -- for ordinary people, for real people, for decent people. Well, what does that mean about half of Britain? Are they not ordinary real and decent? It's already very divisive from the very top. So we'll see what happens in the weeks, months and years that come. Hala?

Christiane, thanks very much. Let's cross live to Brussels, the capitol, the home of the European Union. Our Erin McLaughlin in there, and I wonder what kind of preparations did E.U. leaders make.

This is was always a possibly, Erin, and certainly, they're not going to want to establish sort of a reality where other E.U. countries can now say we want our own exit referendum. We want our own special terms. What is going to be their plan now?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hala, I think first and foremost people waking up this morning here in Brussels are in shock. I just got off the phone with one E.U. diplomat who told me that no one had expected this.

Later today here in Brussels, we can expect, though, a flurry of meetings beginning at the European Parliament. There's also a meeting expected here at the building behind me at the European Commission and then in Luxembourg at the foreign ministers' meeting.

The response that comes out of those meetings will be absolutely critical, because a key focus here in Brussels is the idea that what has unfolded in the U.K. is symptomatic of a larger problem. They're very concerned about the possibility of contagion, the rise of Euro skepticism of other countries within the E.U., and that is going to have an impact, this diplomat tells me, on negotiations with the U.K., this diplomat telling me they want the negotiations to begin quickly.

And in his words, he said there will not be any niceties. He said that no E.U. leader will want to make a Brexit look like an attractive option for other E.U. member states. He said that the U.K. will not get a good deal out of this.

That is just one perspective. Keep in mind, the U.K. will have to be negotiating with 27 other member states, Hala.

GORANI: Erin McLaughlin in Brussels. Let's get some context on this unprecedented decision that was made as a result of this referendum.

Freddie Sayers is here with us still. OK, so we've passed that point, by the way. Mathematically it is now impossible for the leave camp to -- even if every single person in Britain --

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: Well, the remaining. I mean, look, there's only --

GORANI: Even if every single person in Britain votes remain, still can't do it.

QUEST: No.

FREDDIE SAYERS, EDITOR IN CHIEF, YOUGOV: Up until now we've been a bit careful with our words. We've been talking about 85 percent, 95 percent, on the brink of. I think we can now say that the campaign to leave the European Union has won.

GORANI: Yes.

QUEST: And stay there. I want to show you results, if I may, as we come over. I want to show you just this is the state of the nation now. There are 376 counting areas that have reported. So you've got just four, five, six more to go, and they are just down here on the south coast, a couple over out towards Caldwell and a few in the middle areas where maybe bad weather and difficulties transporting the things. But essentially it's over. It's a done deal.

And with these numbers, as you can see at the moment, mathematically, with what's left to vote and knowing the turnout is over 70 percent, it cannot be possible. So leave has won the U.K. referendum.

But look at the individual ones. Take Manchester for example. Manchester remain, 60 percent. It should have been much higher than that. Birmingham in the midlands, Britain's second largest city, that was just neck and neck. It shouldn't have been. Remain should have held Birmingham by a considerable margin.

Out to the west and to Cardiff, and again, you see numbers that simply do not -- remain never got sufficient traction. They didn't get majorities big enough. And Bradford, this wonderful northern mill town, there you see 54 percent for leave, 45 percent on a 66. And yet, the country is split.

Scotland, every seat in Scotland, every area in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, they went for remain, and that's the way, of course, the constitutional question comes up whether they now ask for -- Sinn Fein's already said that the British government no longer represents Northern Ireland. Watch out for a request there to join up.

And finally to London. What you -- I'm just showing you the country in total. You've got three or four countries here. You've got Scotland, you've got Northern Ireland, you've got the rest of England and you've got London on its own with singular exceptions out to the east, Basildon and a few places out to the west and one in the south, London voted to remain. The United Kingdom, the map of the United Kingdom tonight just exemplifies this split.

SAYERS: I mean, people talk about London being a kind of city state almost. And, you know, it is deeply unpopular in parts of the country, and lifestyle and businesses people are involved in is so different. You know, you just need to go some miles outside London, and life is very different.

And I think there's a real sense that the kind of globalized world, which for these voters was symbolized by the European Union, was benefitting London.

GORANI: But not the rest of the country.

SAYERS: It wasn't benefiting the rest of the country.

GORANI: But Freddie, let me ask, because many of our viewers are -- now they're digesting the news. What happens now? I mean, two years of negotiations --

QUEST: At least.

GORANI: -- possibly longer. That means quite a long period of uncertainty, because we don't know the deal the U.K. will strike with the E.U. and other partners.

SAYERS: Well, within the next hour, the Prime Minister needs to come to the steps of #10 Downing Street and make some kind of statement to reassure the markets and tell the world what he plans to do. You know, it was his idea to have this referendum. He campaigned in one direction and was unsuccessful.

He needs to say if he's going to begin formally the process of withdrawing from the E.U. straight away. Will he delay? Will he stay in office? How long for? These are crucial questions.

QUEST: But I see balances. The map behind you is just showing northeast England, sea of red. Northwest, red. Eastern England, red. West midland.

The Prime Minister's difficulty is going to be Europe has to be negotiated with, but he's got to keep Scotland at bay and he's going to have a troublesome Northern Ireland as well. What's his priority in this?

SAYERS: I think the divisions he now has to heal are beyond just those geographical ones. You know, we have older people voting in the opposite, very strong opposite way to younger people. We have a difference between more educated people and less educated people.

Society is really much more than in a normal election, because normally, you know, there are conservative and labor, the two main parties. There are rich supporters of each. There are old and young.

GORANI: Yes.

SAYERS: It doesn't divide society so quite clearly. So there's something really quite dangerous about the way this divided society, and I think the first thought on his mind should be, you know, how can we bring the country back together?

QUEST: OK, while we look at the picture from Downing Street, Germany's foreign minister has just spoken, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He says, "The early morning news from Great Britain is truly sobering. It looks like a sad day for Europe and the United Kingdom."

GORANI: So mirroring what the economy minister said, but except he added "damn" in front of his tweet.

So we are waiting to hear from Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, Prime Minister David Cameron. I suspect they'll all come out before markets open in an hour and 45 minutes.

Hold that thought, Freddie. We'll be back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: A very good morning to you if you're just waking up and joining us across Europe or the Middle East where the U.K. has voted to leave the European Union. It is mathematically impossible now for remain to win. The U.K. is out.

GORANI: An absolutely historic day. There is no overstating what happened in the U.K. today. What this means for the E.U., that political, that economic, that diplomatic union is now really fundamentally forever changed.

The pound has now fallen to its lowest level against the dollar since 1985. Look how it plunged, as news of the leave campaign success emerged. You could see it there basically falling off a cliff on that graph. Asian markets, as well, Richard, not doing too well this morning.

QUEST: No, if you look at the markets in Asia, Tokyo there was flirting with circuit breakers as it fell more than eight percent. And Hong Kong opened 1.8 down and then the losses accelerated down 4.8.

The Australian market, even the Shanghai in China, which most of the night had held its own, but it was off now 2.5 percent.

New York's Dow, the Dow futures, in fact, all the U.S. futures are looking to be sharply off 3.5 percent, four percent for the NASDAQ. The S&P, the broader market, is also expected to be off 4.7 percent.

So whichever way you look at it, obviously even London is going to open down at least nine percent when trading begins in just over an hour and 40 minutes from now.

GORANI: And remind me, are there circuit breakers in London in case we see a steep, steep declines?

QUEST: There are individual stocks circuit breakers or at least trading ranges but not across the entire --

GORANI: It wouldn't suspend trading at the --

QUEST: Who knows what it might do if things get really grim.

GORANI: All right.

QUEST: Uncharted.

GORANI: It is absolutely. This has never happened before. There's no model for this. So we are, of course, as Richard just said, in uncharted territory.

John Defterios is in Abu Dhabi with more market reaction.

JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Yes, indeed, Hala. You talked about the dollar pound rate. Right now it's stabilized in the last 30 minutes of trading, and as you know, the worst-case scenarios were for a fall of some 15 percent. So I think the Bank of England and others in the U.K. cabinet would be quite happy if we didn't see it go for an additional run when we saw the U.K. markets open in full force later in the day.

We're seeing some other safe haven buying. Gold is up six percent, but oil is down sharply because it's traded in dollars and the dollar is stronger. It is down by six percent.

The other currency trade, which I find is interesting right now, is the Euro, although, the Euro is up six percent against the British pound. It's down nearly five percent against the U.S. dollar and down eight percent against the Japanese yen.

What does that tell us? It brings into question the European Union architecture. I think this is a shot across the bow to Germany, of course, which is the driving force within the European Union, clearly a message to Brussels and clearly a message about the overall architecture of the European Union and Eurozone going forward.

I think if I'm an international investor and I'm sitting right here in the Middle East between Asia and where you're sitting in the U.K. right now, I'm looking at the spread, better than 3.5 percent in terms of the Brexit vote. I'm questioning my investments in real estate.

Middle East, Indian, Russian investors have been piling into that market for the last 10 years. We saw transactions in the first five months leading up to the referendum down some 20 percent. So that's a big question mark going forward.

And let's not forget the U.K. has built its reputation for hundreds of years as an open economy. Compare it to Singapore, Switzerland, the United States. It's right up there near the top, and in fact, sucks in about $40 to 50 billion a year in foreign direct investment.

What are the terms going forward? It's a huge question mark. And then I think in terms of the European Union architecture, we have to raise the question, will others line up. Prestige Economics, which has a good track record, based out of New York, put out a quote this morning saying, "This may encourage other European Union members to put forward referendums going forward." We have to put the question on the table as we see the vote wrapping up today in the U.K.

GORANI: All right. John Defterios in Abu Dhabi.

QUEST: So, Christiane Amanpour has been at Westminster. You've braved the wet, although, I'm not sure it rained during the course of the night. But certainly the ground under your feet looks extremely soggy from what we've seen on the pictures.

AMANPOUR: Well, Richard, the ground under our feet is soggy, and the ground under this nation is pretty tenuous right now. In fact, many people have said that whatever happened in this vote that it would cause an earthquake, not just here but across Europe.

So we go to Europe right now where I'm joined by Jan Techau. He's the director of Carnegie Europe, and he has been a remain supporter. So Mr. Techau, what happens next?

JAN TECHAU, DIRECTOR, CARNEGIE EUROPE: I think two things are going to happen next, basically simultaneously. First of all, the E.U. and U.K. have to develop some sort of, you know, orderly process to deal with the situation which nobody has ever tried to deal with before.

And at the same time, the E.U. leaders, the other 27, if you will, need to make absolutely sure that this is not setting a president, that, you know, this doesn't become an attractive model for anybody else. So they will try to play it hard while at the same time also, you know, trying to address some of the deeper underlying issues that, you know, have troubled the E.U. for quite some time.

AMANPOUR: Well, what can they do? You know, what needs to be done that they can actually do without doing what you just say they don't want to do, which is encourage other groupings, other countries to pull out as Britain has done?

TECHAU: Well, first of all, they will try to play it hard vis-a-vis the U.K. It's quite clear, you know, that they will have to, you know, unify around the position that will make it, you know, quite painful for the U.K. to, you know, negotiate this exit so that everybody sees what happens to you if you try to do the same thing.

But at the same time, of course, this is just the tactics of the day. There needs to be, you know, a deeper kind of answer to all of this, and that really means reforming the E.U. over the next couple of years and also giving answers to some of the very pressing issues of the day, most importantly, the refugee crisis where it seems that no compromise is possible.

But I think this additional pressure will lead to some, you know, very hard thinking here, so there needs to be a short-term kind of technical answer to this and a long-term strategy one, and we will see some sort of mix of the two emerging over the next few days I think.

AMANPOUR: And then what happens in terms of a plan B? And you did mention the refugee issue. Obviously, that was a disaster. Europe could not figure out how to burden share and actually deal with a crisis that many in the refugee community said a block of 500 million people could have dealt with in a much, much better way than it did.

But what does a Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande, what do they do as a sort of a plan B? Do they get together? Do we expect any sort of public presentations from the main European leaders now?

TECHAU: We will certainly see some public presentations. First, of course, you know, the British Prime Minister needs to speak. He's got to have the first word, and a lot of people will, you know, phrase their response around this.

But I think, you know, we will see pretty frantic symmetry also here in Brussels. There's talk of possibly an emergency summit here on Sunday. The foreign ministers are meeting already today, so we will see a number of statements coming out from these various meetings.

This is on crisis mode, of course. You know, what the more structural answer to this will be, that is something we will not see now immediately in the aftermath of this in the next few hours. I think this needs to be hammered out in the upcoming days and weeks.

But it's quite clear that the E.U. can't go on like this. You know, nothing can go back to normal. You know, some of the deeper underlying questions, that's the Euro, that's refugees, that's also foreign policy to a certain extent, need to be addressed.

And then there's the democratic deficit, you know, that is something -- all of this has fed into this discussion and has emboldened the outcome. And if they can't find answers to this, then they will be in even deeper trouble in the future.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, we're going to be watching how this unprecedented situation unfolds. Jan Techau, director of Carnegie Europe, thanks for joining me from Brussels.

And we're going to take a short break now and be back with much more afterwards. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: The next half hour is going to be crucial, because we're expecting to hear from the governor of the Bank of England, who is obviously going to try and soothe nerves of the markets.

Take a look at the pound. It's off about 11 percent. It was 13 percent at one particular point. It's down now 12 percent, $1.34. But it has found a flaw for the time being, all the futures across the world. The London and the New York futures are lower.

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: All right, and we are also expecting to hear from the prime minister of this country, David Cameron. A big political defeat for him.

We've heard from the German economy minister and the German foreign minister. I personally thought I'd would hear from the French prime minister or president before Marine Le Pen, who's the leader of the national front, but she is the first to have tweeted a reaction demanding an E.U. referendum for France, potentially the beginning of a domino effect here of far right parties asking for their own exit referendums.

QUEST: Which other countries -- quickly, Freddie, which others would be expected to have political parties that will demand a referendum, whether it's followed through or not, but this domino effect? Where should we look?

FREDDIE SAYERS, EDITOR IN CHIEF, YOUGOV: Poland is a country that most recently has a right-wing government, and you can expect something like that. Some of the Nordic countries are increasingly Euro skeptic. You know, Sweden has a vibrant and growing right wing party, so you may see a kind of northern European divide. And then, you know, potentially countries like Greece, which have, you know, tried this and had these kind of referendums like this and weren't successful may try something else again.

GORANI: Yes.

QUEST: Of course, to be -- just to put that into perspective, it's much more difficult for Greece, which has the Euro. I mean, the United Kingdom doesn't have to change its currency to affect what's taken place.

GORANI: Yes, absolutely. And the United Kingdom was much more separate from the Eurozone anyway, so I guess the process of extraction would be simpler. But still, we are going to, I think, see a lot of this from now on. And I think that Germany and France, both founding members of the beginning of what the European Union was in the '50s are going to try to avoid setting an example here where they will accept the result of this referendum and make it extremely easy for the U.K. to renegotiate it.

SAYERS: You know, within each of those country, even within Germany, there is a growing right wing party. This is happening across Europe. GORANI: Yes.

SAYERS: And I think that, you know, we've already had some slightly complaisant sounding tweets coming out from people within the European hierarchy. You know, hey need to be careful not to brush this aside, not to call it too much of a sad day where people make a mistake and need to be somehow corrected. They need to be looking at what people are expressing and make sincere comments about how they're going to reform to prevent this from spreading.

QUEST: Before we go to Downing Street, thank you Freddie. Let me just tell you, it's been reported that the U.S. president, Barack Obama, will speak to David Cameron over the course of the next hour. I would imagine, you know, middle of the night there now. He's probably both sides have been watching the results, but Barack Obama is due to speak to the Prime Minister over the course of the day.

GORANI: We'll see if we get a reaction before that conversation. It's 1:36 a.m. East coast time, 6:36 a.m. here in London. Let's go live to Downing Street. Max Foster is there. And Max, when do we expect to hear from the Prime Minister this morning?

MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: Well, we can assume it's going to be in the next hour and a half or so, because he has to do something to come out and reassure the markets before they open. He's obviously having conversations with other world leaders as well, as you've intimated, because whatever he does from here, everyone looking to the door for some sort of leadership. Whatever he does from here will affect not just the U.K. but the world.

So what can he say for the markets? Well, the markets are facing uncertainty. There's nothing they hate more than that. Huge amount of concern in the markets, so they're looking for leadership. They look to the Prime Minister.

The problem they've got is that he has been undermined to a certain extent by what happened overnight. He led the stay campaign, and he's lost some credibility.

How does he move forward from here? The city needs him to stay in power and lead through this, and we can also assume that he's talking to the leave side of the campaign. There must be some sort of negotiation going on behind the scenes there.

The key figures there are Boris Johnson, of course, Michael Gove, but also Gisela Stuart as well. They're speaking with each other. They've got to come up with some sort of strategy. What do they want out of this, and how can they handle it sensitively while satisfying their political ambitions but not destabilizing the economy?

It has huge ramifications this, not just in the immediate future just today, but also how on earth does this system unravel? How do we move forward from here? How does the U.K. leave the European Union? We just don't know.

GORANI: Max Foster at 10 Downing Street. We continue to wait for official reaction from the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Quick break. We'll be right back with more of our breaking news coverage. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: So I'm here on Abbington Green. Joining me to discuss all of this is the U.K. MEP, Ray Finch. Welcome to the program.

RAY FINCH, UK MEP: Thank you, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: This is obviously a very divided for Britain. You've seen it's practically 50/50. Not quite, but it's practically 50/50. Nigel Farage, the head of your party, made a very boisterous victory speech saying that this is a victory for real people --

FINCH: Yes.

AMANPOUR: -- for ordinary people --

FINCH: Yes.

AMANPOUR: -- for descent people.

FINCH: Yes.

AMANPOUR: What about the rest of the half of Britain who didn't vote? What about the, you know, foreigners?

FINCH: Let me put this straight for you. The fact is that if this government and its allies hadn't put in so many scare, smear stories saying the roof was going to fall in, everything would go wrong, would be cast adrift, they're would be wildcats running down the streets, then we would have won by a far bigger majority. The fact is most people who voted remain were scared remainers.

AMANPOUR: You know, you say the government has, you know, had scare tactics which gave you a less big victory than you thought you would have had.

FINCH: They scared people.

AMANPOUR: Yes. Now, some people find your party very, very scary because of the divisiveness, the xenophobia, the sort of anti- immigration.

FINCH: No, no, that is absolutely wrong.

AMANPOUR: Well, let me see if you agree with this comment from the former chairman of the conservative party. "This referendum campaign on the E.U. has delivered nasty divisiveness in industrial quantities as always happens when nationalist sentiment is whipped up. The worst of the filth on immigration has been whipped up by Mr. Farage." How do you react to that, an particularly obviously, with that horrible poster?

FINCH: That is a party political statement. That is a party political statement by --

AMANPOUR: Did you approve of the poster?

FINCH: That poster came from a picture in "The Guardian." Is "The Guardian" being (inaudible) for showing it?

AMANPOUR: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The poster was a news poster --

FINCH: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

AMANPOUR: -- of legitimate Syrian refugee coming to Slovenia.

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: You took it and said it was European refugees coming to Britain.

FINCH: The head of the E.U.'s agency --

AMANPOUR: Are you defending that poster?

FINCH: -- the head of the E.U.'s agency --

AMANPOUR: I just want to know whether you are defending the poster.

FINCH: I am answering you. The head of the E.U.'s agency said 80 percent of the people that were coming through, supposedly Syrian, were not actually Syrians. They were migrants.

AMANPOUR: They were going to Slovenia, Mr. Finch. Do you accept that that was a lie, that poster? And are you prepared to continue with this divisiveness?

FINCH: It's not divisiveness. It's telling the truth.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, we're not going to get beyond that. So let me ask you this. Mr. Farage has been the face of this victory, and he has been out there --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Oh, no, the face tonight. We haven't seen any of the other leaders, so he has been the face of this victory. When I asked the conservative chairman of the foreign affairs committee, so is Mr. Farage now the face of this victory, he said, no, (inaudible) delivered what they said they were going to deliver. They delivered the referendum, and now they can, you know, thank you very much and go away.

FINCH: He would say that.

AMANPOUR: So tell me what you plan for U.K.? What do you think Mr. Farage's future is?

FINCH: Oh, absolutely. The fact is this just opening the door. None of the changes in British culture, British society, the British political scene can happen until we leave the European Union.

We've got a two-year gap between when Article 50 is activated and when we actually leave the E.U. So in that time, what we want are things like a changed city electoral system. We want more and more --

AMANPOUR: Referenda?

FINCH: -- local referenda. So people are more involved, because what's happened in the past is people have just been used by the so-called main stream political parties.

AMANPOUR: But I want to know what you think Nigel Farage's future is. Someone said he might get a peerage. Some have said, you know, he might become very powerful in a new sort of Brexit government. I mean, do you think that that's possible?

FINCH: It depends entirely upon what happens to the conservative party. If the conservative party self-destruct, which is entirely possible because they are very, very divided, then we might see in a very short period of time a new general election.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you, you know, to again to comment on the following. Because there are lot of people are very, very angry about Nigel Farage, and now we're seeing Marine Le Pan demanding a referendum in France, Geert Wilders demanding a referendum in the Netherlands. And these are people who are considered very far right.

FINCH: It's not just them, no. Beppe Grillo in Italy, no one could go as far right as us doing for a referendum also.

AMANPOUR: OK. Fine. Quote of the day from Baroness Warsi, who was a leaver and then changed to remain because of the poster.

FINCH: No, she was never a leaver.

AMANPOUR: She was a leaver. She may not have a been a campaigner, but she was a leaver.

FINCH: No, she --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Listen. She said, "The leave lineup: BNP, La Pen, Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, Farage. I wouldn't get on a night bus with them, would you?"

FINCH: Well, she's just scare mongering. This is what the establishment does.

AMANPOUR: The people are scared of you.

FINCH: No, they are not.

AMANPOUR: They are.

FINCH: Look at me. Who could you be scared of me? I'm lovely. AMANPOUR: Well, they're scared of what you want to bring. They're

scared of the division --

FINCH: What I want to bring is democracy --

AMANPOUR: -- and the hatred of foreigners.

FINCH: -- and fairness. We have nothing against foreigners. We have nothing against immigration. What we want is immigrants who will come to our country and who will be able to contribute. We don't want open- door migration --

AMANPOUR: Well.

FINCH: -- where what happens is big business actually suppresses the wages and the aspirations of ordinary people by bringing in unlimited number of cheap labor.

AMANPOUR: Ray Finch, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

FINCH: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And we're going to take a short break, and we will be back with much, much more as the implications of this vote unfold.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back. Breaking news out of Ireland. We have this news coming to us from the Irish government saying they are noting the outcome of the U.K. E.U. referendum and that this result clearly has very quote "significant implications for Ireland as well as for Britain and for the European Union."

So it's going to be very interesting to see some of these big areas Northern Ireland. This is the Irish government, but that Northern Ireland would have preferred to stay in the E.U. in a similar vein. Scotland as well would have preferred to stay.

QUEST: And Poland's foreign minister has said that Brexit is a sign of the need for change of the E.U. concept. Doesn't say what that change would look like or how it would be implemented, but clearly now everybody is speaking about this subject.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, the leader of the Netherlands party for freedom, Geert Wilders, has tweeted, "Hoorah for the British!" is what he says, "Now it's our turn. Time for a Dutch referendum."

GORANI: All right. The very far right politician, Geert Wilders had that to say this morning. Christiane is in Westminster with another guest. Christiane?

AMANPOUR: Well, Hala and Richard, of course, as we've been saying all evening, this kind of referendum with this kind of result was bound to have a catch-on effect amongst people like Geert Wilders, people like Marine La Pen, who have declared already that this is what they want to do and this is why Europe is worried about it. Not just because it could break up Europe but because of who actually are the leaders behind these parties.

Let's go to Tom Fletcher, who's the former British ambassador to Lebanon, and he joins us from Abu Dhabi.

Mr. Fletcher, welcome to the program. You, as a former British ambassador, how do you see this affecting British relationships not just with Europe but around the world?

TOM FLETCHER, FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO LEBANON: Well, good morning, Christiane. And obviously it's been a bruising and debilitating debate, but it's a moment now actually for the U.K. to come out and re-explain to the world what we stand for and to do that collectively and confidently.

And we are a P5 security council member. We are a global trader. We have a huge investment in the armed forces. We are a humanitarian super power, and we have a global network, which is the envy of many countries. And I hope that what we we'll see today is that more reassuring confident message to our partners and our allies and indeed to our opponents.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Fletcher, you say all these things about what Britain is, a great humanitarian super power, a great, you know, military, NATO, and all the other things. But you as a former ambassador, can you explain why so many of the ambassadors and the security and defense establishment and foreign policy establishment thought that Britain remaining in would be that much stronger? How does it hurt Britain's ability to influence by standing on the outside?

FLETCHER: Well, there was a very clear government view that we were stronger inside, and that came through, of course, in a long, hard- fought campaign. And there have been many predictions made during the campaign about what will happen next.

But the important thing now is actually that we rally together to ensure that those predictions don't come to pass, that there is this collective British response to this and that we come together as a political system. But also that our people, our network of ambassadors and business people and others around the world are out there trying to find together how we get through this next phase.

Our role in the 21st century won't be defined by this result, by the referendum itself, but by how we respond to it now.

AMANPOUR: And do you think that what happened, this referendum result, could define what might further happen to Europe? I mean, for instance, tell me how you think Geert Wilders' demand for a referendum, Marine Le Pen's demand for a referendum, how will they play out?

FLETCHER: Well, clearly today we're going to hear a lot of noise, a lot of noise from the hard left and the hard right. We're going to hear lots of silence from many of those who are more shocked, worried, fearful about what comes next.

And so it's important that we don't rush to any early judgments. I think we need to take a deep breath collectively at home in the U.K. but also across Europe and work out together what the implications of this are. But it would be a real mistake to rush to those early judgments and to give too much of a platform to the more loud and extreme voices that will seek to dominate today's coverage.

AMANPOUR: Tom Fletcher, former British ambassador to Lebanon, thank you for joining me from Abu Dhabi.

Hala and Richard, we're going to go back to you in the studio now.

GORANI: All right, Christiane, thanks you very much.

Freddie Sayers is still here with us. Let's talk about the future of British politics here. David Cameron is in trouble politically. We don't know if he'll resign. We don't know when. But who's going to be -- whose kind of been now brought forward to prominence?

SAYERS: That's one of the big questions. You know, the cast of characters who had lined up on the Brexit side of the argument is a mixed one, and it's a small group. I mean, you have the whole might of the establishment were arguing to remain. All the main political parties, all of the big institutions and so, you know, there is one or two national figures. There're Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage. These are the names that people will know. Beyond that, here are no household names in that group.

QUEST: But they're just going to have to get over that basically, aren't they? I mean, the Prime Minister said at the debate earlier in the week that, you know, he'd went to the country, he promised a referendum, he has a view on how that referendum should go. That view is clearly not won, but he can carry on and do the negotiation afterwards. I mean, that might be wishful thinking.

SAYERS: You've got to try and work out what's going to happen inside the conservative party, the governing party. The right wing of the conservative party, which has been pushing for this Brexit for decades almost have had this moment now, and they are not going to stand by and allow David Cameron to carry on, I think.

You know, he already has a fragile majority in the House of Commons. He relies on his fellow conservatives to support him, and unless you see some totally extraordinary thing, he's not going to be around for long.

GORANI: We were waiting for the Prime Minister, but right now the cat to contend with.

QUEST: And I don't see the microphone in Downing Street. Did we look at the -- if we look at Downing Street full-frame, we would expect perhaps to see the microphones being put out there. No, we've got a cat instead.

He's not going to speak. But, of course, realistically, he's not going to speak before the last two counting areas have declared, one of which is the western part of Cornwall, and the other one I can't really work out where it is because it's somewhere just sort of south of London, southwest of London. He's not going to speak before Jenny Watson's given us the final number.

SAYERS: Unless he decides he has to say something before the markets open, yes, so the timing's an option.

GORANI: That's in an hour.

SAYERS: Not sure how that will work, but, you know, in terms of what he says when he does appear, it's going to be interesting to see how he chooses to reach out to those people within his party who have been arguing against him this whole time.

GORANI: By the way, you were talking about the European leaders and how they're tweeting or making statements that they're sad. Well, the French foreign minister also issued a statement saying, "Sad for the United Kingdom. Europe continues, but it must react and regain the confidence of the people."

QUEST: Yes.

GORANI: (Inaudible) Jean says this is urgent.

SAYERS: That sounds like a much wiser political statement, because even within France, there is agitation for this kind of movement and there's a lot of dissatisfaction. We do a lot of polling in France, and they are some of the least happy citizens of all of the countries of Europe with their government.

QUEST: And we're just a moment before the top of the hour. In that 20 seconds, 30 seconds, just help our viewers understand how seismic is tonight?

SAYERS: I think it's historic. You know, you had the entire establishment of a whole government all of the big institutions, even the celebrities, everyone was on one side of this argument, and they lost.

It is the nearest thing we've had to a revolution since 1642 when Oliver Cromwell and became the lord protector and executed our king. You know, we don't do revolutions in the United Kingdom. We are known to be a tea drinking and moderate people. Today, we've done something different.

GORANI: On that note, I'm going to sip my tea as we continue to wait for the Prime Minister --

QUEST: I'll join you.

GORANI: -- David Cameron to step out of 10 Downing Street. The cat is still there. were going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Stay with CNN.

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