to him personally that north korea is prepared to denuclearise. president trump has been talking with the japanese prime minister ahead of next tuesday's meeting, and said he's optimistic about progress with north korea on the nuclear issue, and on retrieving japanese citizens who've been kidnapped. leaders of world economic powers are preparing to confront donald trump over the new us tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. before joining them for the g7 summit in quebec, donald trump complained that france and canada were also hurting the american economy. the american space agency says it's detected organic molecules on mars, raising the possibility the planet may have harboured life. nasa scientists say the mars curiosity rover discovered three different types of organic molecules five centimetres down, which are not evidence of life in themselves, but could have come from living organisms. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk with me, zeinab badawi.

brexit is the main preoccupation for politicians here in parliament. and now the opposition labour party has announced a new proposal. it wants britain to have access to the eu single market while not actually being inside it. even that does not go far enough for some labour mps. my guest is that prominent pro—eu campaigner, labourmp, chuka umunna. he wants britain to be a part of the european economic area, just like norway. but is he going against the spirit of brexit while also being disloyal to his own party leadership? chuka umunna, welcome. this new amendment would give britain full access to the single market. surely that is what you want, why not support it? i will be voting for the labour front bench amendment as we call it here in britain but also voting

for a cross—party amendment which was supported by a number of parties in our british house of commons which sought to keep us in what is called the european economic area. that is the only way you can have genuinely free access and be a part of the framework of standards and rules that help consumers, the environment, employees. that is the only way to do it. the intention behind the amendment is not a bad one but you cannot actually achieve the objectives unless you seek to keep britain in the european economic area. let's clarify this because many find it complicated. you say you will support this new amendment for britain to have access to the single market, as proposed by the labour party leadership. you will. i will. but it does not go far enough. in many respects it is a statement of government policy and government policy is insufficient. because any country, any of your viewers watching this around the world, any of your countries can access the single market through a free—trade agreement with the european union.

but that is not the same as being part of the european economic area which gives you full access and you participate in that framework of rules. can you do both? support the cross—party amendment tabled in the house of lords, one of those amendments coming before the house of commons to be debated next week, which stipulates that britain should be part of the european economic area, the eea. you want to support that as well as the new amendment from labour? can you do both? they are different. they are different but not inconsistent. the objectives set out in the labour front bench amendment, the only way to achieve them are by means of the european economic area in the cross—party amendment. you can have do both those things. i don't want to bore your viewers with the intricacies and drama... no, not too much process. but basically unless you can put forward a piece of legislation

or an amendment that commands support on both sides of the house so notjust the opposition but some government mps taking a different view to their government then you cannot get through. so the labour proposition does not go through because no conservative mp will support it. that is not the position of labour. keir starmer, the shadow brexit secretary says that your backing of the house of lords amendment of britain being part of the eea will not work because it is the pretence that everyone in the party is in the place on it. he says that there are very strong and different views across the parliamentary labour party on that particular amendment. he is saying to put that to one side and support ours. will you do that? just support the labour front bench amendment? it's not a question of whether i will vote for it. i already said i will do that. it is a question of whether conservative mps will do so. and they are clear they will not support the labour proposition

but they will support the cross—party amendment, which has not been put down by either front bench, to keep us in the european economic area. such is the determination... do you know that for certain? there are over 260 labour mps in the house of commons. that is a huge number. 13 conservative members have put down an amendment for the trade bill today, indicating that this is what they want. there are some people, but it is a small minority of people in the labour party, the parliamentary labour party who will not support this. that was the case in respect of other aspects of this bill where we managed to succeed. the bottom line is that there are sufficient numbers of conservative mps who are prepared to rebel to offset however many labour mps... get them to back the new labour amendment. surely this is bigger than party politics. if there is a real chance of 260 labour mps plus the conservative rebels rebelling against their own government then surely you should be, as a prominent labour mp, be saying that things have shifted now with this new proposal by labour. come on board.

this is bigger than party. but it is not a new proposal. it is a restatement of existing policy and also exactly the same as the announced policy from the government which is full access to the internal market as theresa may set out in her mansion house speech earlier this year. it wants us to participate in eu agencies and have some involvement with their standards which is what the prime minister has said she wants as well. she has not said she wants the custom union and... the customs union... they have said explicitly... that is different... when it comes to conservative mps, a large number of them will support the custom unions amendment. i wish the conservative mps would support labour amendments. they have made clear they will not do so. it is a big thing to defy the government an even bigger

to vote on an opposition amendment. but a crossparty amendment, not a party political thing, they would get better support. i do not control what they do. it is odd that you are trying to do both. that you support both. they are not inconsistent. let's look at what you want, eea amendment, often called the norway model. but do you know what the norwegian prime minister, erna solberg, herself says about that? whether britain should be a part of the eea? she says a direct message for british politicians like you who want that continued eea membership. she says that britain would have to maintain free movement of people and continue to accept rules made in brussels. she asks why should you leave the eu if you are accepting that? she does have a good point in the sense of my own view is that of course it would be far better for the uk to stay

in the european union. short of that, the best way of limiting the damage is to continue to participate in the eea and the customs union. she says that will not work. it's not in the spirit of brexit. hang on a moment. she may have said these things but she is absolutely clear that her country would welcome the uk being part of the eea, not least because she says it will increase the bargaining power of the eea relative to the european union. that's a different question. i was just about to come to your question precisely. with regard to free movement, in fact, the phrase is misleading because it suggests that it is a free—for—all and there is not. you can better manage and impose greater restrictions, if that is what you wish to do, to the way freedom of movement operates, as part of the eea and the european union. but britain, the united kingdom, chooses not to do so. for example, if somebody has been in our country for three months and has not secured work and has no prospect of work you can ask them to leave.

we choose not to do that. so you can actually address that issue within the eea. it is quite clear that the eea, as the norwegian prime minister has said, another quote from her, she says that as a politician i think it would be very difficult for the british to go that way after the referendum. she may in theory welcome it but she says it is not possible because it goes against the spirit of brexit. i don't believe it does. the freedom of movement was something that is not accepted... let me answer that directly. the british people were asked in 2016 whether they wanted to leave or remain in the european union and whether they wanted us to begin the process to withdraw from the european union. the result was that they wanted to start the process to leave and that is what parliament did. the big question is whether you are able to deliver brexit in the form that people thought they could get. basically all the benefits of european membership, certainly economically, but being outside of it. that is not possible.

in terms of how the british people wanted us to leave, that was not on the ballot paper. i don't deny that immigration was not an issue but what i am saying is that in terms of the balance and the weight that the british people choose to give to their concerns about immigration and whether they retain theirjobs... that was left to the politicians to decide. it was just in or out. and your party leader, jeremy corbyn, has said on numerous occasions, explicitly, that freedom of movement of people is not something i am going to accept. there is a question mark about freedom of movement of capital will be allowed under this labour party amendment. freedom of movement of services and so on. but financial services, but we know that the freedom of movement of people is a nonstarter for him. under your suggestion that britain remained part of the eea, it would be. that is correct. but that is his view. he is your party leader. we are a democratic party but the overwhelming majority of our members and the overwhelming majority of our voters support us

continuing to be part of the eea, the single market and the customs union. i don't think... you don't know that, however. we do. there have been a number of polls, there is another one coming out this week supporting the proposition. actually, i think one of the reasons we have not had a proper vote on this in the labour party is because people know what the results will be. there are plenty of mps, keir starmer has said it, labour mps, not to mention the party leader who said that freedom of movement is something we do not support because we know our constituents do not support it either. as i said, pure freedom of movement is not a requirement of the eea. let us be clear. i don't think people in my party want to see the british labour party echoing press releases from the british conservative party or, dare i say it, the uk independence party. they expect better from the party.

that is not to deny that people do not have legitimate concerns about immigration. of course they do. but if you implement the right policies you can better manage it without completely adversely impacting on your economy. we know from the government's own research that the areas that stand to be hit hardest, to be hit hardest from us leaving the single market and customs union are precisely the labour areas we represent and many of the areas that voted to leave. you mentioned immigration and it is a difficult issue in many ways. but the former conservative party leader, current conservative mp iain duncan smith has spoken about his question of migration and immigrants. "with the uk being part of the eu," i quote, "at present a white romanian jobseeker faces far fewer obstacles to come to britain than an indian engineer or brazilian dentist. but brexit can mean fairness all—round on the basis of meeting our own nation's requirements". so actually, as he states quite clearly there,

a post—brexit migration policy could actually let more brown and black people into the uk? so it is not about race? that is a false prospectus being put forward by iain duncan smith because the conservatives have a policy of reducing migration to the tens of thousands. that is a change of course from sajid javid, the new british home secretary who has signalled possibly appeasing... what the new home secretary has said in the uk is that the hostile immigration policy announced by one of his predecessors, the prime minister, he will not press on with. but the requirement that immigration be reduced to the tens of thousands, not only requires a reduction in net immigration from the eu but also drastic reduction in immigration from non—eu countries such as india and nigeria, etc. more immigration is coming to the uk from non—eu countries than eu countries.

so unless iain duncan smith is advocating dropping this commitment to reducing immigration to the tens of thousands, he is misleading people. you are a member of the group open britain, which is very staunchly europhile and you are also co—chair of the all party parliamentary committee on europe. you want a referendum on any brexit deal that may emerge. you want a kind of people's vote. what will the question on the ballot paper be? the reason for having a people's vote on the brexit deal is because with every week that passes, new facts emerge. the viewers who may have been watching the impact of brexit on the good friday settlement in northern ireland will be scratching their heads and wondering what that has to do with brexit. all manner of things has turned out to be impacted by it that we did not know before. that's why we should have a vote on the deal. my own preference, and the campaign of the people's vote which i am part of, hasn't stipulated that question.

it needs to be a yes or no question? of course. i would suggest it would be leave with the prime minister's deal or stay in and argue for reform as part of the european union. that is my personal preference. that is what would be on offer. can i just ask you, that's what would be on offer, accept the prime minister's deal? it's going to be so complex. people are going to have to sit down and think, the prime minister's deal, what is it, what about the customs union and freedom of capital and all of that? that is so complex. zeinab, we've got to be careful. let's not patronise the british people. i'm not... they are more than capable of understanding what this deal entails. oh, really? there are people, remainers like you, who say we got into trouble with a simple yes or no because you were trying to reduce to a simple answer something that was highly complex.

the big difference is, and in many respects we are having the debate should have had a long time ago, but the big difference is you have two fixed propositions. the truth of the matter is, when this kicked off, we were speculating, it was hypothetical, you had people like the british foreign secretary, borisjohnson, saying because the french want to sell us brie, the germans, cars, and the italians, prosecco, they'll give us everything we want and have the benefits of the single market. we now know the facts. and you have the actual fixed proposition of what out looks like, we didn't know, and we know what being a member of the european union looks like. that is the big difference. suppose that deal is that it clear is the best deal that the house of commons can come up with because brexit secretary, david davis, said in december that parliamentarians would play a major role in the brexit negotiations, that cannot be any doubt that parliament will be intimately

involved at every stage. because government was forced into that by backbenchers. ok, so therefore, if there is that on the table, and you're thrashing this out and if there is this deal and it's a good one and you like it, what happens if the voters then reject it? if parliament rejects the deal...? if the voters in the referendum reject the deal on offer even though arguably it's a good one that's been debated and agreed by parliamentarians. if the people reject the deal, there's a bit of a contradiction in saying it's a good one because they will have concluded it's not good enough and not worth it. that may be something they've decided because they've not looked at the ins and outs of it. ah, but we can't go down this road of patronising british voters. all right, so you would accept it, it's a deal that you would go and... what would happen, britain were to crash out of the eu then? i don't think anybody would like to see that happen. but it could happen.

but in the end, if the british public determine that we should accept whatever deal the prime minister comes back with, notwithstanding whatever net negative impact it might have on our country, we will leave the european union. going back to the question, as i said, my preferred question would be leave with the deal, or remain. but remain is not an option as you know because britain has voted for brexit. the government says there is no deal, it would crash out... but it can't do that. i'll tell you why. parliament has secured for itself a meaningful vote on the way we withdraw from the eu which covers all aspects. but they could suspend... they would not be able to crash the uk out. the government is not able to legislatively, at least, crash out with parliament agreeing in the affirmative agreeing to leave without a deal.

so this is the big difference. when i speak to eu foreign ministers and heads of government, people are getting that because of the parliamentary arithmetic in the parliament in the uk, although you're negotiating with the uk government, they currently have a negotiating position for which they don't know they have support in our parliament, and that makes it difficult for our european partners. you said if we don't crash out, you accept the deal or remain. isn't that the crux of the issue? you just want to stop brexit. hey, i've been absolutely honest about that. i'd love to stop brexit. but you voted for article 50, which triggered the process for exiting the eu... i shall explain why. i'm really clear. people think this is some revelation. of course i want to stop brexit. people voted for brexit. i don't get to decide. it's not a dictatorship. it's about the people and the people determine that they don't want to accept this deal but they'd rather change our country,

that is up to them. you are the grandson of a high courtjudge, privately educated, city lawyer. are you not part of the metropolitan elite which is out of touch with what people are feeling? i simply represent my constituency. i was born in the south london constituency of streatham. we are one of the most deprived local authority areas in england. one in four people lives in poverty, over half of our residents cannot afford to buy their own home, and we have some of the biggest social problems in britain, and yet we scored the highest remain vote and it's not because my constituents are out—of—touch elite, but it's because we have many problems which we don't believe will be solved by leaving. my grandfather fought for this country, he served our country, prosecuted the nazis at nuremberg, he was part of our intelligence services. he would not want us

to become an isolationist, go—it—alone country that lacks self—confidence on the world stage. isolationist, go—it—alone country. is that the visionjeremy corbyn has for britain? i'm not sure precisely what is vision is for us, vis—a—vis europe. i think the views of many on the left in the uk towards the european union are not accurate, they are slightly anachronistic. it is seen as a neoliberal capitalist club. you hear people say that about the european union. i think pedro sanchez, the new prime minister in spain, our swedish social democratic sister party, syriza in greece, they would have something to say. so he doesn't have the right vision? he wants state subsidies, he has the wrong visions. we were talking about the rail lines. we have just nationalised one

of our train lines in this country while being part of the european union. you don't get on with the leadership, that is my point. you had a spat about politics, an internship in your office. and what you told the politics home website, "the labour party leadership briefed against you, you said, and policies to ban unpaid internships, not student placements," making quite clear there was a difference. why did the labour party leadership brief against you? you would have to ask them. why do you think that? i think there is, traditionally speaking in the uk, you got a first—past—the—post electoral system. i would rather have proportional representation, which is more democratic and fair. with this system, it is a 2—party system rigged in favour of two parties, and that necessitates those parties being broad coalitions of where they sit on the spectrum. there is an open debate, in both the parties, whether they continue being broad coalitions, bringing in, say, in the labour party, social democrats, keynesian.

centrists, such as you. ..people who would come from a marxist tradition. i don't have a problem with that but some do. including jeremy corbyn. you think he has a problem with centrists like you? some of those around him and some of our membership, many of whom... we've had a huge influx of members since he became the leader which is a good thing, but some don't think that people who sit in my social democratic place have a place in the labour party. briefly, sticking with the labour party, in 2015 you flirted with three days with running as leader, you changed your mind. some people thought that was flaky of you, but would you stand as leader? you've been talked about as the black tony blair, as britain's answer to barack obama. i'm fine with that, i'm streatham's chuka umunna. there is no vacancy

in the labour party leadership and nor will there be or should there be. should be in the nearfuture? would you likejeremy corbyn to stand as the leader in the next election? i don't get to determine that. the membership have been very clear. i'm certainly not arguing for anything different and it's highly unlikely i should become the leader of the labour party any time soon. or ever, for that fact. you could stand. it's not about me really. i'm in it because i am trying to change the country and change the world and if you're not in politics for that reason, get out. chuka umunna, thank you for coming on hardtalk. thank you very much for having me, lovely. hello there, good morning. in wales, it's just been the warmest day of the year so far.

here, 27 degrees. in scotland, we had some slow—moving, thundery downpours yesterday, bringing some flash—flooding. and, across the southern half of the uk, much more cloud, and there's sufficient cloud over the next few days to bring the chance of one or two heavy and perhaps thundery showers. again, the worst of the storms, the more widespread storms, are likely to stay over the near continent. but we're looking at a few home—grown downpours in the next couple of days or so. difficult to pick out exactly where they'll be. but we've got this zone of weakness on friday, from wales up towards the humber and north yorkshire, where we could see a few more showers developing, perhaps towards the south—west of england, too, hence the odd slow—moving downpour across western parts of northern ireland, and particularly central scotland — some thunderstorms here. large parts of the uk will be dry. best of the sunshine, south—west scotland, north—west england, and later in the south—east of england. those storms in the north will tend to fade away, most of the showers in england and wales fading away, too. but a fair bit of low cloud coming into eastern scotland and eastern

england overnight, and a chillier night, actually, across eastern scotland and north—east england. quite a grey start here, as well. a lot of that low cloud, misty weather, will tend to burn off. we'll see sunny spells developing more widely. quite a grey start here as well. a lot of that low cloud, misty weather, will tend to burn. we'll see sunny spells developing more widely. very few showers on saturday, the bulk of them are going to be in scotland, and these again will be heavy and thundery. not moving at all, so if you catch one, you will know about it. but it seems to be all or nothing again, and most places will have a dry day. now, we've got very little wind to stir things up at all, or to move things around. this lower pressure towards biscay threatens to bring some thunderstorms our way. at the moment, it looks like on sunday they're more likely to be through the english channel, affecting the channel islands. the odd shower further north, but again the bulk of the showers will be in scotland. probably more widespread showers on sunday, and again, heavy and thundery.

but large parts of the uk dry, and temperatures into the low 20s. now, at one stage it looked like this weather front will bring all these downpours into the south—east of the uk. but now, we've got sufficient high pressure to just keep that at bay. mind you, it's not far away from kent on monday. otherwise, some good spells of sunshine. again, no wind at all. a few showers, not quite as heavy this time for scotland, but one through the pennines, too, and temperatures 22, maybe even 23 degrees. and, looking ahead to tuesday and wednesday, not a great deal changes. most places will be dry. temperatures in the low 20s in the sunshine. mid—week, though, things may change. this is the briefing. i'm maryam moshiri. our top story: days before the us—north korea summit, america's top diplomat says kim jong—un has assured him that he's prepared to denuclearise. britain's prime minister arrives for the g7 summit in canada, leaving behind another storm in her cabinet over brexit. ahead of the football world cup we visit the host city

of kaliningrad, russia's westernmost exclave. leaders arrive for the g7 summit in canada but with tensions high over donald trump's america first policies, is it more of a case of the g six ahead of the