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Labour Party Leader Refuses to Resign; Gold on the Rise amid Brexit Instability; Far Right Party Urges French E.U. Referendum; Scotland Talks about Leaving the U.K.; Calls for Unification Referendum in Northern Ireland; E.U. Leaders Call for Swift U.K. Exit; Millions Sign Petition for Second Brexit Vote; At Least 24 Dead in W.V. Floods; Euro 2016 Fans React to Brexit; Contenders for British Prime Minister; Spain Electing New Parliament. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired June 26, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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


[05:00:00]

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MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world as we continue our special coverage of Britain's decision to leave the E.U. I'm Max Foster.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN HOST: And I'm Clarissa Ward. A lot of news this hour.

Closely following all those developments, they are the fallout of the Brexit vote. And we're seeing some sharp internal divisions, particularly in the Labour Party today in terms of the leadership.

The Labour Party shadow health secretary has resigned; Heidi Alexander said on Twitter that the Labour Party needs a new leader after the U.K. voted to leave the E.U.

Alexander said that the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, quote, "does not have the capacity to shape the answers our center is demanding."

WARD: And this comes after Corbyn fired his shadow foreign minister. Hilary Benn was fired earlier today after he challenged Corbyn's leadership. Labour leaders have called on Corbyn to resign for not campaigning hard enough to remain in the E.U.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMY CORBYN, LEADER, U.K. LABOUR PARTY: Our policies on trade, economy and migration will have to change in light of the referendum vote. But that cannot be left to the likes of Johnson, Farage and Gove.

Labour will fight to ensure that our agenda is at the heart of the negotiations of withdrawal from the European Union that lie ahead, including the freedom to shape our economy, to work for all, maintain social and employment protections that benefit all and that whoever leads the government is intensely held to account, to democratic account throughout the whole process. (END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: We just had a statement from a spokesman for Jeremy Corbyn in light of the resignations and the firings.

It says, quote, there -- sorry, "There will be no resignation of a democratically elected leader with a strong mandate from the membership."

Corbyn had previously said he'd seek reelection.

WARD: Exactly. Well, the Labour shadow foreign minister has just spoken to the BBC after his firing by party leader Jeremy Corbyn for planning to challenge Corbyn's leadership. Here's some of what Benn said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILARY BENN, FORMER LABOUR SHADOW FOREIGN MINISTER: This has been a very difficult decision for me because I agreed to serve in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet. I didn't vote for him. But I thought we had a responsibility to support him as the elected leader of the Labour Party, as I've supported every Labour leader since I was elected as a member of Parliament.

But it is becoming increasingly clear that there's growing concern in the shadow cabinet and the parliamentary Labour Party about his leadership. And I said to him that I no longer had confidence in --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you call him first?

BENN: -- I had -- no longer had confidence in his leadership and he then dismissed me from the shadow cabinet, which is understandably. And I thanked him for having given me the opportunity to serve as shadow foreign secretary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Literally fired in the dead of night as well, wasn't he, they --

WARD: 1:00 in the morning.

FOSTER: -- they haven't had a -- haven't slept all night and then we've had these extra conversations as well. We keep hearing about the other members of the cabinet are going to go as well, the shadow cabinet. Diana Magnay trying to digest all of this from 10 Downing Street, where the story was all about the prime minister the other day. Today it's about the opposition party.

We don't know, though, who is going to be the running to replace Jeremy Corbyn -- if anyone is. Somebody needs to stand up front, don't they?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They do. It was interesting, Hilary Benn said that he wasn't going to comment on who could be a future leader, that his decision wasn't about that, that he had simply wanted to express the fact that he did not have confidence in Jeremy Corbyn as leader of a Labour Party that could unite this very, very divided country, in his words, "heal the wounds" that Brexit has brought about.

He said that he would not stand as a Labour candidate. He said that Jeremy Corbyn was a good and decent man but he is not a leader and he felt that he'd done his duty to express his lack of confidence in the Labour Party leader.

We don't know if other members of the shadow cabinet, all of whom backed Remain and all of whom have seemed to feel uncertain about Jeremy Corbyn, whether they'll follow in the footsteps of Heidi Alexander, who resigned pretty much 8:00 am this morning British time on a Sunday morning.

But wow, what a Sunday morning for the Labour Party, very deep political instability across all the parliamentary parties in this country at the moment, this extraordinary time politically, this extraordinary time economically -- Max.

WARD: That's right, Diana. It really feels like we're looking at a political vacuum here at such a desperate time of uncertainty for the country.

But give us a sense, Diana; obviously, you're standing outside Number 10. We heard Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday announcing his resignation.

Any idea who is the likely candidate to fill his footsteps?

[05:05:00]

MAGNAY: Well, it would appear as though Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and also very prominent in the Leave campaign, would hope that he would be next prime minister.

It's expected that the home secretary, Theresa May, will contest the leadership. She would be far more of a unifying figure.

But the Tory leadership contest is quite a convoluted affair. And there can be outsiders who come in. So it's unclear who will take over.

What is clear is that David Cameron says he'll stay on until October, until after the Conservative Party conference, just to try and maintain some kind of stability in this very, very unstable period for British politics.

FOSTER: We're hearing from Europe that they want a quick decision from London, how they're going to move ahead with this because they just want to extricate the U.K. as quickly as possible from the European Union because it's just causing all this instability in the whole political system.

But London can't actually give anything at this point, can they? It's going to be months before they can because we don't know who is running the prime minister's office, let alone the Labour Party.

MAGNAY: That's true. But David Cameron should be getting a negotiating team into place. And there is now somebody who is running -- from the Leave campaign, who will be running those negotiations, who said that he wants Britain to remain within the single market, no continued free movement of people and for Britain to continue to the E.U. budget.

Now there's conditions that Europe is going to find very hard to agree to. But really the question is when Britain should invoke this Article 50, which will start the process, the two-year process, of leaving the European Union.

And David Cameron has said he doesn't want to invoke that fast and the E.U. ministers are saying that he should. Angela Merkel is trying to be sort of conciliatory between it all and say we don't want to be unseemly in our haste. We need to negotiate all of this in good faith and on good terms.

But you certainly do hear European leaders, essentially saying that Britain is holding the E.U. hostage by not precipitating this process as fast as it can.

Certainly as far as Britain is concerned, it wants to negotiate a framework, really, of trade deals before it implements Article 50 so that it has the best terms that it can when it leaves.

But I think, as you say, when you have this political instability in the Tory Party, in Downing Street, in the Labour Party, we certainly won't have our ducks in a row to start that negotiating process anytime soon. And that negotiation process will take a very long time.

FOSTER: It's not going to start until we have a new prime minister. Diana, thank you very much indeed.

And with David Cameron stepping down, the leader of the Conservative Party will be selected by this process, as we understand it.

WARD: That's right. So Conservative members of Parliament who wish to lead the party must be nominated by two fellow members. And if more than two candidates are nominated, then the 331 Conservative MPs hold a series of votes until they select their top choices.

Then the entire party, which is about 150,000 members, votes in a postal ballot to make the final decision on who will lead.

FOSTER: And since the Conservatives hold a majority of the U.K. Parliament, that person also becomes the country's prime minister.

The Brexit has brought on an actual chaos. We saw that on Friday. But the Middle Eastern markets were closed when the decision came down. We're seeing the region's first reactions now. They're not faring much better than anyone else is as well. Our John Defterios is tracking developments for us.

John, in terms of the reaction there today, what are we seeing?

JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, I think, Max, you can say it's a shot right across the bow of all Middle Eastern markets. Not one market is in positive territory.

And with $3 trillion wiped off on Friday in global equities, I'm not too surprised, to be candid. We have a boatload of uncertainty and, as you know, investors don't like any uncertainty.

Let's cover the biggest market first and that is Saudi Arabia. The Tadawul index opened down better than 4 percent for the biggest loss since January. Now it's trading down 2.5 percent.

Dubai's main index is down 3 percent and Qatar is trading down about 1.5 percent. Not surprisingly, the same trend that we saw in Europe, banking and property stocks are taking a hit and they are seen as the most vulnerable going forward.

And beyond the Gulf states, we see that the Cairo stock exchange is down 5 percent. That's the economy that's been struggling because of the political nature and the geopolitical and security concerns there.

And then we have the commodities which are moving; the lifeblood of the region, of course, in the Middle East is oil. It dropped 5 percent on Friday and it will be under further pressure. It's not traded widely over the weekend.

Middle East and South Asian investors are big buyers of gold.

[05:10:00]

DEFTERIOS: And that, of course, remains a safe haven. It rallied nearly 5 percent Friday. And right now the latest quote we can get is at $1,322 an ounce.

So, Max, we see heavy selling across the board. But compared to the Dow industrials down 6 percent and most of the European markets, in fact, the wider average of European Union stocks were down 7 percent Friday, it's not bad, although the selling was quite deep at the opening bell.

WARD: John, London obviously has long been a favorite location for emerging market investors.

What sense do you get in terms of the impact that Brexit will have on future investment?

DEFTERIOS: Well, it's a bit of an unknown at this stage, Clarissa, but there's deep concern about an emerging market contagion as they seek out. The emerging market index was down 3.5 percent after the vote and today's sell-off that we see in the Middle East will only add to those woes.

The Middle East sovereign funds -- and this is a big number here -- sit on nearly $3 trillion of wealth and the U.K. and Europe are popular homes for capital or shall we say were popular homes for their capital. They were prolific investors in Central London real estate.

In fact, the Middle East investors alone control nine of the top 50 developments in the capital that are underway and we saw transactions fall 20 percent leading up to the referendum.

So it's a huge question mark over the property sector. We're also getting some comments from regional Middle East governments who have stakes in the -- for example the European bond market. Saudi Arabia's central bank said it's reviewing its investment policy pertaining to euros and the British pound and making adjustments.

That's interesting that they're already changing the portfolio and Turkey's European Union minister noted the country is worried about a political domino effect which could have major economic repercussions, as we know.

A heads of state meeting taking place in the European Union. They're listening very carefully to what, for example, Chancellor Angela Merkel has to say.

Will this be a domino effect with other European states that feeds into the economies going forward?

It's a huge concern for Turkey, of course, as an emerging market. We see Egypt, another emerging market, selling off quite sharply today on this Sunday.

FOSTER: OK, John, thank you very much indeed. We'll be watching the Eastern markets as well as they open up today.

You are watching CNN's special coverage of the U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union.

Up next, calls are growing in France for that country to follow suit.

Could a Frexit be next?

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[05:15:00]

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FOSTER: Well, days after the Brexit vote, far right politicians across Europe are calling for their own countries to follow in Britain's footsteps.

On Saturday, French President Francois Hollande met with various political parties.

WARD: Among them the National Front is one of the loudest voices calling for France to have a referendum of its own. Its leader, Marine Le Pen, says she raised the issue with President Hollande and here's how she said he responded. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARINE LE PEN, LEADER, NATIONAL FRONT (through translator): To the question about a referendum taking place, he answered no. It's as if we had used a swear word, as if the people came last.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WARD: OK. Well, let's talk more about the fallout of the Brexit vote. Joining me to talk about it is Vivien Pertusot, he is the head of the Brussels office for the French Institute of International Relations.

Let me start by asking you, is it possible that we could see a Frexit?

VIVIEN PERTUSOT, FRENCH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: It's very unlikely. It's true that there is a lot of love-hate in France regarding the E.U. at the moment and it's true that the E.U. has probably never been as unpopular as today in France.

But at the same time, the debate has never been very hostile regarding the E.U. and the French have always had this ambiguous relationship with the E.U., loving the -- loving many things about the E.U. on the one hand and feeling that the E.U. is not French enough to a certain extent on the other.

So it's true that there is call for a referendum and you just had Marine Le Pen on. This is one thing and you can see this growing. But I don't think that we can expect a Frexit anytime soon.

FOSTER: But it does strip from her cause, doesn't it, and she's consistently growing over time and that narrative is growing in France.

As you think Brexit ultimately will have an influence on that movement in France and pushing it towards -- not independence but coming out of the E.U.

PERTUSOT: Well, it's certain that Brexit is and will be a boost for most eurosceptic parties across Europe and it's true for France as well. France is also quite particular because the eurosceptic movements or at least the eurocritical movements come from the far right and the far left.

So you have -- on both sides you have very critical voices against the E.U. at the moment. But when it comes to the National Front in particular, it's true that Marine Le Pen's calls to have a referendum and even maybe to leave the E.U. has been boosted by Brexit.

But -- and that this cause is becoming ever more popular in France but, at the same time, I don't think that if the French were put in front of the choice of leaving or remaining in the E.U., you'd have a majority of people saying we want to leave the E.U.

For many reasons, but one of them is that there's still this sense of responsibility of ownership in France regarding the E.U. It's a little bit our project to a certain extent and this is not always true in some other countries and certainly not in the U.K., clearly.

WARD: When you talk to people on the streets in Paris and Brussels, do you get the sense that, amongst most people, there's resentment against the U.K. for opening Pandora's box, if you will?

PERTUSOT: It's -- I mean, the French have been -- there have been a few polls and you can hear that as well on the street and in conversations, that the French have been the most ambivalent regarding the U.K.'s remaining with the E.U.

And in the past few weeks you had polls saying that the French were among the few Europeans saying, well, maybe Brexit is a good thing.

But at the same time, there is this feeling of not believing that the U.K. could actually leave the E.U.

And I was in Paris, actually, on the day of the referendum and the day after and all the conversations that I had, all the people that I talked to were quite baffled really by the result and they went to bed with the first results -- or at least the first expectations, saying that it will be Remain. And they were quite confident and then they woke up and it was a Leave vote.

And all of the people that I talked to were very surprised because they thought that, in the end, the British voters would say, yes, we want to remain.

FOSTER: I think a lot of Brits felt that way as well.

Vivien, thank you very much indeed.

Let's talk about independence proper now then. Scotland's first minister saying the country will likely seeing independence from the U.K. again. And Nicola Sturgeon says a second referendum is very much an option as the government considers its next move following the Brexit vote.

We're going to go to David McKenzie. He's in Edinburgh, Scotland.

And you got a -- you got a good perspective on this, David, because --

[05:20:00]

FOSTER: -- you've flown into Scotland. People there are very much caught up in independence, it's been -- you know, they've grown up with that debate. And it's grown with them. But you're going in there and getting a taste of what it's like today.

How palpable is it?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's very palpable, Max. And here at the Edinburgh Kiltmakers, it's a shop that sells kilts, Scottish wares, mostly for tourists. And I have to point out this is the McKenzie tartan. And what we have here is really a sense of some of the struggles of Scottish and people who live in Scotland are having, both from a business sense and just a personal sense. I'm here with David, who works here on the weekends but is also an

entrepreneur in the tourist industry.

So David, some of your E.U. citizens you employ, how are they feeling right now?

DAVID, TOURISM ENTREPRENEUR: So we are a company which we work with locals or people who live here on the (INAUDIBLE) basis and they show the tourists around. And what happens is we have people working for us for a year and (INAUDIBLE) travelers from here.

For us, two days after Brexit, people were not expecting it and people are quite surprised. Maybe it's just we can feel the certain tension within the country.

MCKENZIE: And now you're -- and the people you work, are they worried that there's an eventuality they might have to leave Scotland?

DAVID: Yes, there's a problem of uncertainty and, myself, we're not sure if it will affect the travel, affect the airlines or the visas. In my mind, in that case, it means there will be less people coming into Scotland or into U.K. And what Scotland will be independent from the U.K. And that's how it's going to affect it because the internal travel within the U.K., it's also quite massive.

MCKENZIE: So a lot of people are feeling the uncertainty. That's not good for business generally. But then also, I mean, the sentiment from the Scots you talk to, they all -- most of them voted to remain in the E.U.

What's the feeling right now?

DAVID: Everyone is confused. That's the feeling. That's the exact feeling. Yes, currently we are doing really good. We're doubling our -- the number of tourists every month. However, it does not have kicked in yet. As soon as the rules and regulations will kick in, we don't know what's going to happen.

And the Scots will be -- Scotland also doesn't know and there's a referendum probably come in, second one, as the leader of Scottish Party said. We're not sure. Everyone is confused. Everyone is stressed.

MCKENZIE: And there -- also there's a sense that, well, of betrayal might be too strong of a word, but that the English has made the decision for the Scots.

DAVID: I am not sure if that will be strong or not or if it will be the correct terms to use. But obviously, I think no one was expecting and no one in England and there are a lot of people who wanted to leave now, they want to change their votes because that was as an expression of themselves but not actually wanting to leave the U.K.

MCKENZIE: Excellent, Thank you so much, David.

There you have it, Max. David here, who works here on the weekends but runs a tourism business that employs a lot of E.U. citizens, they're worried both for now in terms of themselves and their kids maybe, but also for the future business of travel in and out of Scotland.

That uncertainty is one of the key factors now that people are dealing with in Scotland. And they're trying to politically push through remaining in the E.U -- Max.

FOSTER: David, thank you, having his own agenda, just flying in. In a matter of hours, he finds his own tartan.

WARD: His own tartan, unbelievable.

FOSTER: Really, unbelievable.

WARD: Well, Northern Ireland voted to stay in the E.U. by a wide margin. Now there have been calls there to hold a referendum to unite with the Republic of Ireland to the south.

Now we're very lucky. We have Brian O'Connell, he's a U.K. consultant director with the British Irish Chamber of Commerce. He joins us now.

Could Britain's loss be Ireland's gain?

Will the Brexit be a boon for Ireland potentially?

BRIAN O'CONNELL, BRITISH IRISH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: Yes, there has been talk about the possibility of increased foreign direct investment, particularly with parts of the city moving to Dublin and that kind of thing.

But, overall, it probably would not be that much of a bonus for Ireland if you also take into account the trading losses that would occur between Britain and Ireland if Britain were outside the European customs union.

And then suddenly there were tariffs and duties and that kind of stuff and all those sort of impediments to trade.

Trade at the moment between the two islands is worth about 1.2 billion euros a year, around about 1 billion sterling every -- sorry, every week -- I beg your pardon -- 1 billion sterling every week. That's a huge amount of money for both countries.

Britain is Ireland's biggest trading partner. Ireland is Britain's fifth biggest trading partner. Britain exports more stuff to Ireland, including financial services and all that kind of stuff, than it does to India, China, Brazil combined.

FOSTER: There has been a bit of a precedent, though, with us, hasn't there, a lot of technology companies keeping the bulk of their staff in the U.K. but having their headquarters in Dublin.

Could that be a model for a future setup as Britain leaves the European Union?

O'CONNELL: It possibly could.

[05:25:00]

O'CONNELL: What makes Ireland attractive, for particularly American companies, is its low rates of corporation tax. But if Britain were outside the E.U., they could certainly compete with Ireland for that sort of investment. There's no -- there will be nothing to stop them doing that.

But certainly for the next couple of years, as we go into this Article 50 negotiation, exit negotiation process that everybody is talking about at the moment, there's going to be a lot of uncertainty.

And uncertainty generally in any country is bad for business. It puts off investors. Everybody just puts the brakes on whatever they were going to do. We've seen that in the city in the run-up to this referendum. That's bad for business, certainly as far as the British Irish Chamber of Commerce is concerned, as we shift into new regulatory environments, whether it's corporation tax or anything else.

We're going to have to work our way through that. And that's what the British Irish Chamber of Commerce is about at the moment.

FOSTER: Yes, keeping everyone busy.

WARD: Absolutely.

FOSTER: Thank you very much.

The world is coming to terms with this new reality in the U.K. and it's been rough on the trading floor as we've been hearing. We'll discuss how the U.S. is reacting to the Brexit vote -- next.

WARD: Plus: the flood devastation in the U.S. state of West Virginia is just coming into view. That and much more when we come back.

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FOSTER: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. You're watching CNN's special Brexit coverage. I'm Max Foster.

WARD: And I'm Clarissa Ward. The headlines this hour:

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WARD: Now the Brexit vote has revealed sharp divisions within Britain's opposition Labour Party. Labour's shadow house secretary, Heidi Alexander, has posted her resignation letter on Twitter. Alexander wrote that she respected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn but that new leadership was needed.

FOSTER: This followed news that Corbyn sacked his foreign secretary, the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, after indications that Benn was planning a challenge to Corbyn. He's since denied that, by the way, and Corbyn was in the Brexit camp -- Brexit Remain camp, rather, but was facing criticism for what some saw as his weak support of it.

Atika Shubert has more on what E.U. leaders are saying about all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You could call it a Brexit backlash in Berlin. Representatives from the six founding countries of the European Union gathered in the German capital on Saturday and presented a united front before the cameras.

Foreign ministers of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands all demanded Britain begin renegotiating its exit from the E.U. immediately.

GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): London also has a responsibility that is wider than just Great Britain. This is why we jointly say that this process needs to start as soon as possible.

JEAN-MARC AYRAULT, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): We start, now we must be clear, the British people have decided.

DUTCH FOREIGN MINISTER: We need to turn the page. We don't want a vacuum. And it's important now that these negotiations with the United Kingdom start in good faith but as soon as possible.

SHUBERT (voice-over): At a separate event, German chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with a more conciliatory tone, saying there was no hurry for Britain to trigger the exit process.

ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): We were sad yesterday that the vote went that way and that is no reason to be in any way especially nasty during the negotiations.

SHUBERT (voice-over): Those negotiations cannot begin until Britain invokes Article 50 of E.U.'s Lisbon Treaty. And it's not clear when that will happen. But some E.U. officials are already growing impatient.

LUXEMBOURG FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Nobody else in the European Union can force Article 50 to be invoked. I hope there won't be a game, a cat-and-mouse game.

SHUBERT (voice-over): Even if talks between Britain and the E.U. begin quickly, under the Lisbon Treaty, divorce proceedings could last two years or more -- Atika Shubert, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WARD: Well, the Brexit vote is affecting matters well outside the U.K.'s borders.

FOSTER: Yes, we spoke to one British ex-pat earlier about how the decision is unfolding over there in the U.S.

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SANDRO MONETTI, "LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL": From the British community in the United States, it seems to be dismay and disbelief.

In terms of the wider picture in America, there's worries about the economy in Britain and Europe having a domino effect, an effect over here.

And yes, it probably will, as the dis-United Kingdom causes chaos around the world.

But well, let's just take a breath for a moment. Let's look to the lessons of history. Yes, the economy is going on a little bit of a roller coaster ride. But the thing about roller coaster rides is, they are eventually over. So let's just hold on tight and not panic.

FOSTER: The views from outside the U.K. seems to be that Britain is now regretting making this decision. You've got these demonstrations taking place and also a petition, saying we want a second referendum.

Is that the view you're getting from there, that Britain may have made a false move here?

MONETTI: Yes, it is. The British community here in America is extremely tight-knit. And we are not talking about 52-48. I'd say it's about a 90-10 seems to be the reaction of the expats. And yes, there is this petition. People here are wondering if they can sign it.

And one of the wonderful things about British democracy is there are now enough signatures for Parliament to debate this.

But would they really overturn the greatest, giantest (sic) referendum in the history of --

[05:35:00]

MONETTI: -- Britain and say, no, you can't do that as the elected representatives?

I don't think so. But yes, there is a sense of incredulity here about what's happened. And also the effect it might have on the United States as the search towards the electorate taking back power seems to be surging through not just this nation but many around the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD: Those aren't the only reactions on social media. An online petition is gaining traction in the U.K., calling for a second E.U. referendum.

FOSTER: It's now received more than enough signatures to require a debate on the issue in Parliament. Here's Samuel Burke.

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SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: By the time folks in the U.K. went to sleep just two days after voting in favor of a Brexit, this online petition calling for a second E.U. referendum on the official U.K. Parliament website had already received more than 2.4 million signatures.

That is well beyond the 100,000-signature threshold required to have something like this considered for debate by a committee in Parliament. Now we have to put that number in context, though; even though it seems large, it is well below the 16.1 million people who voted to have the U.K. stay in the E.U. and also much fewer than the 17.4 million people who voted for the U.K. to leave the E.U.

David Cameron has said from the get-go there will not be a second referendum. And since the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, has also said there will not be a second referendum.

That said, one of the members of Parliament, who's a member of this committee, says that the select committee will be considering this petition on a second E.U. referendum this Tuesday.

We have a map here that shows the density of where these petitions are coming from, these signatures are coming from. And as you can see here, red represents the highest density coming really from London, which is, of course, one of the few places that voted in favor of staying in Thursday's election.

A lot of people are also dismayed to see that the second most searched term on Google in the U.K. is, "What is the E.U.?"

One has to hope that those are people searching who didn't vote on Thursday. And we're also seeing the phenomenon of the Regrexit, this hashtag being used, regret about the Brexit.

People like this woman in England saying, "I personally voted Leave, believing these lies. And I regret it more than anything. I feel genuinely robbed of my vote."

And commentary also on Facebook of this nature, anecdotally, we see people like Ajaz (ph), saying, "I made the biggest mistake in my life voting to leave. Now I'm regretting it." -- Samuel Burke, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: That's really turning into a snowball effect, really. Let's have a look.

There you go. They've gone over 3 million. And that's an incredible amount of signatures in a very short space of time. We were talking earlier, weren't we, about how we need to know who is actually voting, Remainers presumably but maybe some Regretters.

WARD: And it's unlikely to actually have an effect but it certainly says a lot about the move here.

Well, coming up, we'll have more from London in just a bit. But first, cities around the world are celebrating gay pride this weekend. We'll look at some of the most vibrant parades. That's coming up -- next.

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GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm George Howell at CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta with other news we're following from around the world.

And in the U.S. state of West Virginia, the death toll has now risen to 24 people dead in that state, that state hit with devastating floods. The U.S. president, Barack Obama, has signed a disaster declaration for the state.

Rain-swollen rivers topped their banks, sweeping some homes right off their foundations. The Professional Golf Association is canceling a major tournament in the area because of extensive damage.

And while the waters are receding, they are leaving behind all kinds of debris. And now many people are left homeless. Many people looking for homes, a bad situation there. Our meteorologist Derek Van Dam is here to tell us --

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: They can't go home because they don't have a home, George. Unfortunately, so many of their houses have been destroyed. And we've now learned that the National Weather Service is describing this as a 1,000-year event, meaning that there is a one in 1,000 chance that this would happen in any particular year.

The cleanup ensues. Take a look at what people are dealing with over in West Virginia right now, I mean, a complete mess. This was the deadliest flood event in 2016.

And unfortunately, George, this particular event, now with 24 fatalities, has killed more than all the tornado fatality events in the United States so far this year, by the way, that number at 12.

Come to my graphics and we'll talk about how much rain actually fell across Central and Southeastern West Virginia. This is from Thursday night into Friday, the majority of the flooding taking place Friday morning.

But look at this swath of heavy rain, upwards of 10 inches in many locations, over 250 millimeters for our international viewers. And the majority of this was in an extremely short period of time. So we had what is known as flash flooding, the rapid rise of water as

it bursts over its banks in the riverways and the streams about.

Take a look at Elk River, for instance. This broke a 125-year record. Look at that sharp rise in the river gauges. It crests at 33.37 feet, well above flood stage. And by the way, it rose 17 feet in a mere 12 hours. That is called flash flooding, folks.

Unfortunately, it led to so much destruction that you saw a moment ago. The good news out of all this, the storm system quickly pulling away from the United States, that's not a problem. They have clear skies. The water level should recede but the cleanup effort continues for the next several days, if not weeks, if not months.

I wish I could bring some of this rainfall, bring it to the scorched southwestern United States because look at what they're having to deal with.

This is one of the many structures that were burnt in Kern County, Lake Isabella, California, region. Over 150 homes burnt to the ground, 75 badly damaged. Over 35,000 acres burnt at the moment. There was 5 percent containment with this fire. That dropped to 0 percent overnight. So we're losing control of this particular fire, it's called the Erskine fire and, unfortunately, we have unfavorable weather conditions going forward, strong winds, high temperatures and low humidity that's --

[05:45:00]

VAN DAM: -- going to fuel the fire for this to continue. It has been an active wildfire season, by the way. We've had over 2 million scorched acres across the United States so far this season, not anywhere near what we experienced last year.

Take a look at the video footage coming from this region and what people are dealing with. Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Kern County. Unfortunately, George, there were two fatalities with this vicious inferno.

HOWELL: And, Derek, I want to talk just a bit more about that fire. As you mentioned, a deadly fire that has killed two people. Let's take a look at that video just once more so we can get a sense of exactly what's happening in that region. You see so many homes destroyed. You see officials doing the very best that they can to deal with the fire.

So far it has scorched more than 14,000 hectares or 35,000 acres of land. The fire was about 5 percent contained on Saturday but it grew overnight.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated but officials fear some were not able to get out in time.

Around the world this weekend, dozens of cities are holding gay pride parades. In Mexico City, rainbows are covering the streets there. And in major U.S. cities like New York and Chicago, they're all set to follow suit on Sunday.

London got things started Saturday. The crowd witnessed this happen as well. Look at this. A police officer proposed to his boyfriend in the middle of the parade, a moment that was celebrated there by onlookers.

The Islamist militant group, Al-Shabaab is claiming responsibility for a deadly attack in Somalia. This happened Saturday at a hotel in the capital city of Mogadishu. At least 15 people were killed there, including a Somali cabinet minister; 25 others were wounded.

Authorities say gunmen stormed the hotel after detonating a car packed with explosives. The suicide bomber also blew himself up there. Police spent hours in gun battles with these attackers. Somalia's national news agency reports the siege, though, is now over.

We will go right back to London in just a moment for the very latest on the U.K. vote to leave the E.U. You'll hear what Euro 2016 fans think about this historic decision. Stay with CNN.

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[05:50:00]

FOSTER: Well, with the British prime minister stepping down, a number of possible successors are being talked about. And the former mayor of London, of course, is one who could be Cameron's replacement. Boris Johnson celebrating the Leave vote.

WARD: And as we all know, he has a bigger-than-life personality and a never-a-dull-moment political career. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER (voice-over): British, blond-mopped...

BORIS JOHNSON, FORMER MAYOR OF LONDON: .. a fine audience, I may say, a stunning audience.

FOSTER (voice-over): -- and bike-riding.

Prone to bumbling...

JOHNSON: I can't tell where they were really but they're there -- it was that kind of --

FOSTER (voice-over): -- and bravado.

JOHNSON: Success of the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2012.

FOSTER (voice-over): It can only be one man: Boris. He does have a last name, Johnson, but no one in the U.K. really uses it. He enjoys something close to celebrity status.

Always willing to perform for the cameras, the former London mayor has his own special flair, which he has been grooming since his Etonian and Oxford University days.

His critics call him elitist but he's not averse to getting down and dirty.

There's little doubt he's a divisive character.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He sort of gets people sort of riled up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oafish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great chap.

FOSTER (voice-over): Johnson spent eight years as mayor of London before stepping down in May. He began his career as a journalist, first writing for "The Times" newspaper, then as the Brussels correspondent for "The Telegraph" and finally as editor of "The Spectator."

In recent months he has been gracing their front pages, having reaffirmed the eurosceptic views for which he has long courted controversy.

JOHNSON: I will be advocating vote Leave or whatever the team is called.

FOSTER (voice-over): To go against the start of British prime minister David Cameron on the E.U. referendum has been a big gamble, particularly given his political ambitions. He became the star player of the Leave campaign.

JOHNSON: We are a great country. We could have some soulful leap (ph). Britain has got a great future outside the European Union.

FOSTER (voice-over): Born in New York, the former London mayor has joked that he could be President of the United States but it's the leadership much closer to home that he's said to be really looking to score.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, there's another major vote underway in Europe as well. Would you believe people in Spain are taking part in elections right now to seat a new parliament?

WARD: That's right. The country's center right party is expected to be the big winner. But Spain's anti-austerity alliance is also expected to make significant gains. That would leave Spain's Socialist Party in last place. The last election in December was considered inconclusive and that led to this new round of voting.

FOSTER: But people are going to be looking to see whether or not Brexit is reflected in that first tested European response in France. Football fans are also there, from across Europe. They're cheering on their teams, of course.

WARD: They are indeed. People attending the Euro 2016 tournament are also talking about the U.K.'s Brexit vote. And our Will Ripley spoke with some of them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Politics and football: few things have such power to unite and divide. Flags and jerseys, colors of national pride, competitors fighting to win or lose.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Happy days. If we leave, we leave.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Even before kickoff of the Wales-Northern Ireland game, these Welsh fans felt like winners.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got our country back. Same as that. We got our ball, it is back. And our government by Brussels.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Fans from Northern Ireland...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We voted that we stay in.

RIPLEY (voice-over): -- worry what the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union will mean for their mobility, their jobs, their future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole day, we might let on that we do, but we do. I'm still having the time of my life here. I'll worry when I go back home.

[05:55:00]

RIPLEY (voice-over): Outside the Parc des Princes, we find fans from three of four countries of the U.K. represented.

RIPLEY: The fans here seem to be divided based on where they live. The Welsh fans backed the Brexit whereas Northern Ireland voted largely to remain. And those from England, they are split right down the middle.

RIPLEY (voice-over): These fans from West Yorkshire and Birmingham backed the Leave campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I think that moving out of England is the best thing that could happen to Britain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people voted because of immigration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Terrorism, that's the fear. Terrorism, that's the fear.

RIPLEY (voice-over): They admit much of that fear fueled by a lack of knowledge about what leaving the E.U. really means. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've already said to yourself so it -- we won't be educated much about it.

RIPLEY (voice-over): This student from Northwest England voted to remain.

RIPLEY: Do you think people were aware of the consequences when they voted to leave?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I really don't. And I have seen many videos of people on Facebook, saying if they'd realize what would happen to the pound (INAUDIBLE) overnight that they wouldn't have voted leave.

RIPLEY (voice-over): No matter who they root for or how they voted, all these fans share the challenge that lies ahead: pulling off a win for the U.K. no matter what Brexit leaves behind -- Will Ripley, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Max Foster.

WARD: And I'm Clarissa Ward. Up next for viewers in the U.S., "NEW DAY" is just ahead.

For everyone else, George Howell will be right back with more of our special coverage, looking at the U.K. decision to leave the E.U. Thank you so much for watching.