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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

UK Votes to Leave European Union. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired June 24, 2016 - 04:30   ET

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


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[04:30:08] HANNAH VAUGHAN JONES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN's very special coverage of the U.K.'s E.U. referendum. We've seen a seismic shift in British politics overnight, and it just keeps on coming.

I'm Hannah Vaughan Jones here in London for you.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: I'm Richard Quest.

Through the night we've gone into the day we continue. The results are all in, and as the maps show, the country has voted by 3.78 percent to leave the European Union.

JONES: Yes, something of a surprise to many, indeed. We've got a map we can hope to bring you to show you the split across the U.K. You can see Scotland there fully in blue voted, everyone there who voted, voted to remain within the European Union. You can see Wales there to the bottom left and there it's largely in red as well. Something of a surprise there that the Welsh largely turned out to leave the E.U.

Overall, many people now questioning the state of the United Kingdom as a union as well. Of course, it was just a couple of years ago we saw a Scottish independence union. That time they voted to remain a part of the U.K. But now, Nicholas Sturgeon, the S&P leader and the first minister of Scotland sayings there potentially now more of a call to have another referendum on Scottish independence and also we might now see huge changes in Northern Ireland, Wales indeed.

QUEST: A defining day in the U.K. history. David Cameron says he'll step down as prime minister, resign, if you like, after British voters chose to leave. The prime minister didn't give an exact schedule. Instead, he wanted a new leader to be in place.

Here's Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson, let's listen in.

(BOOS)

QUEST: Boris Johnson, well, he sort of came out of the house. We thought he was going to speak. Instead he's sort of gone on the move. But we're not sure where, slightly more shambolic.

Boris Johnson, the reality is he became -- the former mayor of London, he became the face of what we saw during the leave campaign. And before we rejoin Christiane, let us take a second to listen to the prime minister who spoke a short while ago. The PM resigned, and that will take us now to talk to Christiane about what on earth happens next in British politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The country has just taken part in a giant Democratic exercise, perhaps the biggest in our history. Over 33 million people from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar have all had their say. We should be proud of the fact that in these islands, we trust the people with big decisions.

We not only have a parliamentary democracy, but on questions about the arrangements for how we're governed, there are times when it is right to ask the people themselves, and that is what we have done. The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: David Cameron there speaking just over an hour ago where he announced he will be resigning as British prime minister in around three months time. And now all eyes at the moment are on Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, of course, the man at the forefront of the leave campaign. Successful as he is this morning.

Let's go to Christiane Amanpour live in Westminster for us with more on that. Christiane?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hannah, I've just been talking to the current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan who said it's going to be important what Boris Johnson or whoever is the official face of the official leave Brexit campaign is going to be very important to hear what they say. Because they must for the good of this country speak inclusively, speak about reconciliation, speak about reuniting this country and present a proper vision for how to go forward.

As you just saw with Prime Minister David Cameron who announced, made that surprise announcement that he was going to step down, as he said, when you come to the big decisions you have to confront them and not duck them. He said it's up to the next prime minister to engage in the divorce negotiations from Europe.

[04:35:03] So what is this leadership contest going to look like? And we are in unchartered territory except as Sadiq Khan reminded us there has been a precedent when Tony Blair stepped down as prime minister and Gordon Brown, who was his chancellor, took over at prime minister. So, there is a bit of a precedent. But this is such an unusual time.

The forces of politics are in such a stressed zone at the moment it's not really clear what's going to happen and what kind of a deal a new prime minister, a new party leader can make with Europe.

As far as London is concerned, this has really been the capital of the world, certainly for the last many years -- the financial capital of the world, the cultural capital of the world. It straddles North America and carved out for itself an incredibly central position in the world economy and politics and as I said culture. It's even had the Olympics, as we know. Sadiq Khan was speaking to the United States n the rest of the world trying to convince them and calm them and make them understand that London would main a very important base for international trade and investment and the same kind of financial services, location and hub and cultural center that it has always been.

That is the hope. But as I say, we're in unchartered territory and we're not quite sure where this is going to go in the end.

I'm joined now by Francesco Guerrera, who is the political editor with "Politico", the magazine, which is actually based in Brussels.

You heard what Sadiq Khan has said. You heard what the prime minister said. Where is going to take? How are they going to react to Britain?

FRANCESCO GUERRERA, CHIEF FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: I think we'll see a two-stage approach. The first will be conciliatory, talks, statements to calm the markets and population. Make insure this doesn't become a precedent for other countries referendum. The next stage will take place behind closed doors -- the idea that Europe is going to give the U.K. an easy ride on negotiation, first how to detach and then how to reattach trade agreement, financial services to help London.

That idea is just fanciful. Europe has to take a tough stance with the U.K. to prevent this from spreading to other parts of the European Union.

AMANPOUR: Even in the aftermath of the vote, immediately the French, marine le pen of the national front, a hard right anti-immigration, anti-Europe party in the Netherland. Geert Wilders, the leader of the hard right Islamophobe and anti-European Party have said that they want a referendum. We've seen Northern Ireland say it wants a new idea to have the choice too in with the republic of Ireland which is staying next door in the E.U., and we don't know but maybe Scotland will itself have a referendum. There could be a whole load of spinoff wheels in the near future.

GUERRERA: Right. And that is the scenario in Brussels, Berlin, Paris. I mean, this is the thing the politicians and bureaucrats want to avoid at all cost. It's important they take a tough stance with the U.K. to show other countries that want to go that way it's not a viable option. It's a painful option. We're looking at least three years, maybe more of instability in the market and economic and political uncertainty.

AMANPOUR: Now, from your perspective, how does it actually, you know, measure up in the Brexit claim that we can have equally valid and valuable and remunerative trade agreements with each of the 27, or just outside Europe as we did with the 500 million strong consumer bloc the single market is. GUERRERA: You'll be very tough, for two reasons. One is trade

agreements take a long time to negotiate, a very long time to negotiate. The European Union has been trying to negotiate a trade agreement with the U.S. for decades and still don't have it really. So, for the U.K. to do that with 27, 28 countries is going to be very difficult.

Secondly, there's this political dimension where what is Europe's incentive to make it easy for the U.K. to trade with them given that Europe does trade a lot with the U.K. and the U.K. benefits in export markets. So, I think it will be difficult and treacherous waters we have entered just now.

AMANPOUR: It's going to be very important days ahead. Thanks so much for joining us.

We're going back to you, Hannah and Richard in the studio.

JONES: Christiane, thanks very much indeed.

Well, it seems everyone is getting their two pennies worth on their say on this referendum result and David Cameron standing aside.

Leaders from across the world, and also wannabe leaders from across the world. We've just heard from Donald Trump, the U.S. Republican presidential nominee. The presumptive nominee, I should say. He is in Scotland himself today reopening his golf course in Ayrshire.

[04:40:02] And he has said that it's fantastic the vote, the Brexit vote and the decision to leave the European Union. He said that Britain has taken back control of its country. That Britons have taken back control of their country.

So, that's Donald Trump commenting. That will be even more controversial because he's in Scotland. There was a petition signed by more than a million people trying to ban him from entering Scotland after some of the comments he's made in recent months about banning Muslims from the U.S., for example.

He's there in Scotland. He's now commented on Brexit and said the complete opposite to what the people of Scotland has said. They wanted to remain in the European Union. Britain has voted, out, and Trump says that's fantastic.

QUEST: The markets are open. At one point the DAX in Germany was down some 10 percent. They've all pulled back somewhat. And we're now just seeing relatively small losses.

The Dow futures in New York are pointing to -- let's look at the -- if you look at the Dow futures, down some 2.5 percent. The NASDAQ futures off 3.5 percent. The S&P off 3.25 percent.

Everything -- just quickly look at the European markets before we take a break so you can get an idea of where we stand at the moment.

Clearly, the initial panic of the morning has subsided both in the currencies, the pound is holding steady at around 1.38. The FTSE is steady, down 4 percent. It's now 1.39. So everything is sort of steady, waiting, I suspect, for a bit more direction.

JONES: We should also say that whilst all the more reaction comes in across the world to this referendum result, France has set up an emergency cabinet meeting will be held there to discuss this Brexit vote. In the meantime, we're getting all the reaction from Westminster as well. And Christiane Amanpour is live in central London with another guest with her.

Christiane, over to you.

AMANPOUR: Indeed.

We're here now with Lord Peter Mandelson who has been a very close aide and architect of the Tony Blair years and the third wave politics that Tony Blair and the Labour Party brought in back in 1997. He's been Northern Ireland's success. He's been business secretary and he's perfectly poised to tell us what on earth we face going forward.

What's been the biggest surprise? The vote, the prime minister leaving, the uncertainty. What is, you know, what are you thinking right now?

PETER MANDELSON, PRESIDENT, POLICY NETWORK: The prime minister choosing to step down does not surprise me. I think it is inevitable. He's not just lost a referendum badly. His whole political project in effect has been defeated. And those who never wanted to go on that journey with him in the first place inside his own party --

AMANPOUR: You mean the referendum?

MANDELSON: No, I'm talking about his whole political project, what he wanted to do in the Conservative Party was to make it a less nasty or socially inclusive, tolerant --

AMANPOUR: So a good thing.

MANDELSON: -- centrist party.

Well, that's what he wanted to do. He did it reasonably successfully. But you have to understand that within his party, there was a sizable group who were never convert to that strategy, who never wanted it to succeed.

And their chosen instrument of sort of defeat and revenge as it were against David Cameron and, frankly, to, you know, vindicate their own true leader who was Mrs. Thatcher, was Europe and was this referendum. That's why they were so determined and never gave him a rest every working, waking moment of his life. They wanted that referendum because they saw it as an instrument, if managed in the right way by them.

Not just to take Britain out of the European Union but to defeat David Cameron and what he stood within his own party. They've won. They do have the upper hand. And now, the Conservative Party is going to be moved away from the center, more right.

AMANPOUR: What does this mean for this country, for its relations with Europe and for its relations with the United States? What does it mean for Britain as a global player?

MANDELSON: As a society, we are going, in my view, to become a more polarized, more divided country. Our economy is going to be dogged for years and years by uncertainty. Not only because we have to negotiate with the European Union the terms of our exit from the E.U., and that we do over the initial period of two years but beyond that, we have to negotiate what alternative future relationship we will have between Britain and Europe's vast single market.

In other words, what's going to happen to our trade? What's going to happen to our exports and imports? What tariffs now are we going to have to pay on our exports? How much more expensive our imports are going to become and how are they going to put prices up in the shops?

Now, for business, this uncertainty is sort of death. And it's going to go on for years. They won't know what sort of economy, what sort of trading arrangement, what sort of position in the international trading system Britain is going to have for many years. And that uncertainty is a killer for business and for investment.

AMANPOUR: I've just been talking and interviewing Sadiq Khan, a member of your own party, first Muslim mayor of London, who was keen to reassure the rest of the world. Very calm -- he's obviously very disappointed because he was a remainder, that London is still open for business. It's still a friendly play, still the capital of the world and can be as prosperous.

Can it?

MANDELSON: And don't get me wrong -- we will still trade in Europe and with the rest of the world. It's just that we'll do so on worse terms. I mean --

AMANPOUR: So you'll be poorer?

MANDELSON: And as a result, we will have less trade. We will -- our economy will become smaller. And our country will become poorer.

Now that, to my mind is the inevitable result over time. Not overnight. I'm talking about incremental changes, cumulative loss of trade. Over many, many years.

So, you'll not see anything happen sharply, let alone overnight. You are, however, going to have to come to terms with a different British economy, with a different set of trading relationships, with Europe and the rest of the world, and that will beg many, many questions for business and international investors.

AMANPOUR: And in terms of the -- you're a long-term political strategist. In terms of what happens to Great Britain, the United Kingdom, we're already hearing Northern Ireland where you were secretary of state there, wants to have the opportunity to vote to join the republic of Ireland.

MANDELSON: The calamity for Northern Ireland, and it's the calamity that people really must, you know, work very hard to contain, is that what we have seen since the Good Friday agreement and peace agreement was struck in Northern Ireland, was the emergence of an all-island economy that sort of embraced north and southern island, Northern Ireland and the republic.

So you didn't really have a border between the two. You were in the same customs area, the same customs union, with both members of the European Union. We had a free travel arrangement that enabled, for example, something in the region of 20,000 people every day crossing back and forth across that non-border for their work, 5,000 were doing so to study going back and forth.

Now, what this means now is that that line across northern and southern Ireland is now going to become the only land border that separates the whole of the United Kingdom from the rest of the European Union. Otherwise, we're obviously surrounded by sea. It's going to be only land border.

And it's a land border that's going to run between two different customs areas. You'll need customs posts and checks on goods traveling back and forth. But also, of course, it will mean the end of free movement of people.

Why? Because effectively, Britain has voted to leave the European Union because many of them didn't like E.U. nationals coming here freely. So, in putting down the shutter, you know, over our front door to the rest of Europe, it would not make back door as it were into the U.K. open.

And that back door I'm afraid is at that border between northern and southern Ireland and it's that border which is now going to be policed very differently.

AMANPOUR: A lot to think about. Lord Mandelson, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

We're going back to you, Hannah and Richard, for a lot more from the studio.

QUEST: We've -- thank you, Christiane.

We've just been seeing pictures of Donald Trump. Here they are again. Donald trump who has arrived at his golf course.

JONES: It's in Ayrshire. Yes, we have just been seeing pictures of Mr. Trump himself coming off his helicopter. He's, I think, behind the camera at the moment. He's being serenaded with some bagpipes.

The reason we're showing you these pictures is not least because he is indeed in the United Kingdom, but also because he's also commented on this Brexit resolution, saying it's fantastic and the British people have taken their country back. QUEST: There will, no doubt, be schadenfreude about it from Donald

Trump and maybe a few caustic tweets about David Cameron. Remember, the two have done battle. Cameron has basically called his ban Muslims proposal stupid. Trump has retaliated in sort.

So, the fact that the prime minister has not only spectacularly lost a referendum tonight but has basically had to resign, knowing what Donald Trump's views are about the prime minister, it would not be surprising if he makes some sort of comment.

[04:50:08] This is the video of when he arrived at his -- I forget the name of -- Turnberry.

JONES: I think it's in Ayrshire. I believe it's just called Trump.

QUEST: Whatever it is, there he is.

JONES: Earlier on, we were bringing you pictures from outside Boris Johnson's home in London. He had just left his home and was heading off, being whisked away to some yet, as unknown location.

If we can bring you those pictures again, you can hear there were very loud number of boos for the former London mayor as he left his home. Huge crowd of reporters gathered around.

Let's see if we can bring you those pictures. This is from about a half an hour or so ago. Listen to the noise around him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BOOING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: We don't know how many people were there booing or how close they happened to be to the microphones but, obviously, Boris Johnson's home was e inevitably going to be the lightning rod this morning since he was and is the most famous face of the Brexit campaign. He is the man -- oh, it's nasty the way they're shouting. Very heavy police cordon.

We're going to -- now let's join the Italian finance minister who joins me on the line.

Sir, good morning to you.

PIER CARLO PADOAN, ITALIAN FINANCE MINISTER: Good morning.

QUEST: I mean, obviously, this is an extraordinary result, one that none of you had wanted, but now you've got to live with. What happens next from your -- in your opinion?

PADOAN: What happens next is a very good question to be asked of the U.K. As far as the other European Union countries are concerned, we are, of course, closely monitoring the developments and financial markets which are taking the brunt of this result. For the rest we have to see what the U.K. and authorities intend to do.

QUEST: Within that, everybody -- I mean, I've hear from your prime minister this morning. I've heard from the Swedish prime minister. Everybody now seems to be saying that the E.U. needs to be reformed. There needs to be a listening to this result and changes need to be made.

But isn't it a bit late for saying that now the U.K. has made its vote?

PADOAN: I agree that today is late. At least the Italian government put this on the table many months ago. We need a new model that looks especially at job creation, growth and solidarity rather than financial equilibrium which are fundamental but not the only driver of economic integration in Europe.

QUEST: Minister, what do you take from the British decision? It was close but it's still quite a clear decision to leave. The fact that a major country like the U.K. decides to go, what do you interpret it as being?

PADOAN: I take it that for a large part of European population and voters, not just in the U.K., Europe appears to be part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. This is very worrying. We do badly need to revamp the European model, and I believe that European -- Europe and all the energy and vision to do that.

We must take it on board. Politicians have a big responsibility from that point of view.

QUEST: Which bit doesn't get it? Listening to Donald Tusk (ph) over the last couple of years, he's quite clear that Europe does not share the E.C's enthusiasm for more integration. But the condition it would appear doesn't get the message. Would you agree?

PADOAN: Well, I don't think the blame game will lead us anywhere. It's a collective responsibility of European political class and political leadership. We need more leadership. We need a vision which goes beyond the implementation of the existing rules which are good but which need to be implemented in a way that takes into account, as I said, as a target such as growth and job creation and solidarity.

QUEST: Are the right people leading the union at the moment? David Cameron has resigned this morning, or at least stepped down and will have done by the end of September. Do you think there needs to be changes within the leadership of the union?

PADOAN: Well, it's hard for me to judge that. I think we need a new vision, a new leadership. It's not a question of who is doing that, but why aren't we doing it as a collective political leadership.

QUEST: Do you fear in any shape or form either in your own country in Italy. We've already heard from Marine Le Pen in France. We've heard from Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. We've heard from several others, all saying, even Sinn Fein that now is the time for other countries. They want referenda on whether to leave the European Union. Do you feel the dominos could been -- be about to fall?

PADOAN: Well, there's a risk of a domino effect. This is one of the most relevant of the Brexit vote. There's a widespread sentiment that Europe must be deeply reform, if not over outrightly left out of the game.

I think this is the wrong answer, but again, those who believe that Europe is part of a solution should do more to implement it and to design it.

JONES: Minister, it's Hannah Vaughan Jones in the studio.

Just one question to you about the rise of nationalism on the continent. Is this something you're particularly worried about within your own country, and is this something that you think that the European Union as a bloc now of 27 states really needs to get a grip on?

PADOAN: Nationalism is sometimes considered the answer to the problems, but it is not. There is one clear example where that is the case. We have to deal with the huge flows of migrants over the next few years to come and settle in Europe. If we have national responses to that, we will not go anywhere. This will add to disintegration. We need to find a European response, including in areas where the nationalist one seems to be appropriate, which is not.

So we have European challenges, we need European responses.

QUEST: Minister, thank you for giving us time this morning. It's going to be a very busy day for everybody concerned within the European Union.

QUEST: Yes, and we'll have continuing coverage from here in London and across Europe, across the world as well as more and more people react to this extraordinary referendum result. Britain has voted to leave the E.U.

QUEST: Thank you. I'm going to take my leave of you. It's been an extraordinary night. It's been an honor and a privilege to be with you and to share this moment in history. Because the news never stops. Neither do we.

This is CNN.

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