hello and welcome to dateline, where each week some of the uk's best known columnists debate the week's big stories with journalists whose dateline is london, as they report those events to the world beyond. this week, theresa may averts the resignation of her brexit negotiatior — but is itjust crisis delayed? as donald trump delights the russians and alienates long standing allies, is it g7 minus one? and the me too movement: has it moved too far, or not far enough? with me: agnes poirier, who writes for marianne in france; the portuguese academic and journalist eunice goes. yasmin alibhai—brown, political commentator in british newspapers, and maria margaronis, who writes for the nation but also makes time to translate modern greek poetry. i am amazed you find the time, good morning to you all, thank you for being with us. for brexiteers, membership of the european union must feel like the gordian knot. two years ago this month, the majority of those voting in a referendum said they wanted to leave. the uk will be out of the union at the end of next march. the biggest problem, though, is how to trade with the eu after the uk has left.

ing new mechanisms are supposed to ensure that goods can cross the border without economically damaging delays; in the case of the land border between northern ireland — out — and the republic of ireland — in — the damage could be political. in december, theresa may, the uk's prime minister agreed a fall back position in the absence of customs arrangements acceptable to both sides. the eu and the uk said northern ireland would have to remain compliant with eu standards. this week, mrs may's cabinet colleague, david davis, her chief negotiator with brussels, threatened to quit, if she accepted a back stop without an end date. i hope you are following all of this! she satisfied him but that only served to alienate the eu further. alexander the great, according to legend, didn't worry about the niceties involved in untying his knot by negotiation. instead, he simply sliced through it. maria i suppose if that were to happen that would be the hardest of hard brexits. how much trouble by these negotiations in. i think they are in a lot of trouble. i think in britain everyone is obsessed with the british side of it and back

stops and non—back stops and so on. but look at what is happening in europe. the whole thing is in crisis. we've just had this election in italy where we now have this strange coalition between the northern league and the 5—star movement with its anti—european stance. we have far right governments in poland, hungary, now slovenia and the czech republic, all leaning towards russia as italy now also is apparently doing. so you know this is notjust a british crisis. this is a pan—european crisis. and unless the european union also changes the particular sticking points especially for southern european countries are the 3% fiscal discipline rule and the way that europe has not handled the so brexit is just part of that agnes but do you think this particular conflict this week tells us anything about how the two sides are shaping

up ahead of that eu summit? there will be a cast of new prime ministers not least the new leader in spain and also in italy. well, brexit. so we learned a new word, backstop. and michel barnier, the irony was not lost on him. he said backstop means backstop! unless it is a stopgap. look, this is all about the irish border. the border between the european union and the uk. that is to say between ireland and northern ireland. ok, so no hard border between those two. it means that border there but ireland will be in the customs union and will be treated differently —— northern ireland and that is not acceptable. so yasmin it if that was really a thrust... in last year ‘s general election. it doesn't seem to have capitalised on it in the polls, labour is frustrating everyone.

it's having this difficult balancing act, between the voters and the electorate in pro—labour is also frustrating everyone. so yasmin it is notjust theresa may and her government that are paralysed, this process is paralysing politics across the board. it is those russian dolls, you go from absolutely the party politics and the regional and national divides in our country to the wider, the biggest doll of all which is exactly as you said, the eu project itself. but here it seems to me that in your script you said something about march we will be leaving. i think one should put something of a question mark because this is exactly one year, the tories fighting each other, labour fighting each other, and people, throughout all kinds coming up, and increasingly this kind of warning coming from the leave side saying, if you take this away there will be riots in the streets. i've heard that about ten times this week. kettle them and put them in the cells! i never thought i would here you say that. iamjoking! laughter are we going to worry about the riots in the street and not apply some... common—sense. eunice do you agree that agnes is right and this is mainly about brinkmanship and when push comes to shove both sides

want a deal and they will come up with one. we don't know about that actually. we really don't know. because on one hand as maria mentioned the european union has a handful of problems to address, brexit is only one of them. they are not terribly interested in having britain out, that's another thing. most member states would like to help britain to remain in the european union. on the british government remains undecided. they have the same discussion for the past two years. the debate has not yet moved on. a large number of members of the cabinet, brexiteers, think that they can have their cake and eat it. they can have the deal they want. they can sign up to the bits of the european union that they like... but not others that they don't like and that is not possible. but picking up on what maria was saying, there has been so much political change in europe at the bottom line is that they will probably get a bit more of the cake and brussels wants to give them at the moment. the european union is very good at kicking that can at the hill, that is why the eurozone crisis hasn't yet been solved.

it's out of the papers but it hasn't yet been solved. so the european union will continue to kick the can up the hill. so it means that rather than britain becoming global britain in charge of its own destiny it is going to be discussing european union for the next decade at the very least. and when boris says i wish she was more like trump, does he know anything about how the european union functions, or about diplomacy? it is a great quote because this was wednesday evening when he thought he was having a convivial dinner and it was all of the records so people could hear what he said that it wouldn't be quoted and apparently, he said that he would go in bloody hard, that's donald trump, all sorts of chaos, everyone would think he had gone mad but actually he might get somewhere. and he doesn't have a point? there's a new book which analyses, you know he is supposed to be

so good at doing deals. he said he would get £1 million, he was getting $50,000. he is not a good deal maker. you don't go around behaving like this. this is a problem, it is about the egos of eton public school educated boys. these are people who have never had to budget in their lives, when they were students all in adult life. so they don't really care... a bit of a generalisation, many tory mps would say, we come from ordinary backgrounds... over the past month we have seen the wintris scandal, all the scandals of the management of universal credit. i am terribly sorry but i see a lot of ministers doing terrible hurt to millions because they don't care.

they are thinking about the grand scheme of things. just to challenge the point, they would say it is not about caring not caring, it is caring about other people who pay taxes, many of whom are and trying to get better value for their money. he says they will be a bit of hurt and chaos for two or three years, that's the negotiating point. i think it is totally unacceptable. this whole thing was a total disaster. it was the wrong question put to people at the wrong time, in order to try to heal the rift in the tory party which it hasn't even done. it has only exacerbated it. and we've got probably a decade of wrangling over buck stops and front stops and non—whatever's instead of dealing with the real issues! as long as that?

we are the power and this is how we are going to do it for the sake of the country, they should say. because brexit is a national crisis, this is something that requires honesty, that's all. there are great politicians in the uk, not all of them don't care about the people, but who is honest enough to say, look, this is not in the interest of the country? i really think it is an important point, shaun, to make, we have never had a cabinet where the vast majority are millionaires. and that makes a difference to how you regard the poor. we have never had a gang of millionaires deciding on policies for the ordinary person. and the most impoverished. it's not the case in the british parliament though.

let's broaden out further from what you were saying, maria, at the start of the programme, because the g7 taking place over this weekend has kind of illustrated, thrown the spotlight on the divisions. emmanuel macron, calling it the g six plus one, we all know who the one is, donald trump. trump exercising this different approach, tearing up the rules. some say that in other situations it could work. maybe it could work in singapore this week. canit? they will see in the same room the two most erratic world leaders. who behave like toddlers with tantrums. we are also seeing a tramp administration into this summit with very high hopes, being very open about the high hopes that we will reach a deal, forgetting that these processes take a very long time. a lot of patient diplomacy. and that north korea has a very long list of demands. so they would only agree to de—nuclear is, to comply with international rules on nuclear weapons if for instance there's a deal with south korea.

if the united states perhaps withdraws military support to south korea. if there is economic assistance to south korea. we'll donald trump enter the room ready to give all of that to the north korean leader? no. i think it is a big western mark. trump is a reality tv star and in november there are mid term elections... so he needs to win, call it a win.

there might be a peace treaty with north korea, he might be a ruthless dictator but he is more intelligent than the american president. you'll probably get a peace treaty without much of a succession from north korea but we have been there before. trump's support is higher at this point than president 0bama's was. there is a kind of population in the united states and here and across many european nations where they want this kind of tough macho non—negotiating real man doing business. his popularity is not only not thinking, it is going up. is that in part a reflection on the perception that in its national terms president obama did not achieve very much. i think what he's done in iran

is a criminal act of destruction. what it has done to the middle east is exactly what they wanted. trump wants a war. i believe that. israel is begging him to have this little war. russia did very well. horribly well in syria. a game in syria it was donald trump was set a red line which the syrians crossed and acted on it, president obama drew a red line and walked away. you have a point when you say that obama did not do half of what he could have done. but also this is a white supremacist backlash. one writer wrote a piece saying that trump is the first white president, and in the sense he is. we are seeing a backlash... and american president, because this is america first but actually could not care less about america.

what about the impact on the global balance of power then because china remains a key player in all of this. the president on one hand has had skirmishes with the chinese about trade but not the conflict is been having with g7 members. last night i googled what is the g7 for? did you get an answer? no! so i got a lot of little accounts of how the g7 was setup. the g7 is a very strange group of countries. it doesn't include the second largest economy which is china, it doesn't include india which is a large economy now than italy, i don't know the rankings exactly. it was set up during the oil crisis to try to manage that.

it appears to me to be a group of western european and american white nations, which are trying to run the world economy to make sure it runs for their benefit. i agree. not only an international organisation, it raises the question of whether in some ways breaking things up might be necessary stage in world process, that we need to have some kind of cathartic process... but we need to know what we are going to build afterwards and this is the big problem. it's pointless. it's very dangerous. and also there is all this and text, trump's relationship with russia, russia's alleged influence the united states...

even across europe. one has to ask, why is he courting russia now? why now overtly. that is a huge dilemma the european countries isn't it? we saw in the last few days president putin in vienna because he was marking 50 years of energy co—operation between those two countries, saying, i do not want a divided europe and there is a common interest, we see countries, traditionally greece has had a positive relationship, there are suggestions that some on the far right... exactly, it is about the orthodox faith... whips in the italian prime minister saying, perhaps russia should be backing the g7. he was slapped down firmly by some of the other leaders , back in the g7. there is an absence that russia

matters to a lot of g7 countries so maybe the european union will have to shift on it. germany was one country being very ambivalent about russia and it has clear economic interests in russia. there's also the point, do we want russia to have a positive impact on the european continent? since the end of the cold war russia feels completely humiliated because it is no longer a super power. seen as a nation that counts, total was more constructive behaviour to ukraine, this is extremely complicated because all the countries of the former soviet bloc to not want any proximity. but maybe there is some benefit in recognising at the very least that russia is a nation that counts and it should be part of some kind of conversation. but i think with putin it is difficult.

i mean i am looking forward to the football... starts later this week! i have never forgotten the wonderful song by sting, the russians love their children too. when we talk about russia we have this hard man in our heads. there's a whole world out there now but why we have these hard men in charge i'd don't think they are disrupters for the long—term good, they are disrupters because they want to stop this extraordinary understanding and values that gamut of it and if we destroy that we will have fascism. i do admire germany a lot. yes but if europe is going to survive it has too soft on and change,

it has two... george soros said quite rightly that is the eu had properly funded those nations... yasmin, the money is not enough. after be looking at this closely in greece for the last five years. it's notjust about money, throwing money at the problem and asking it to absorb people in dire straits is not enough. europe as a whole has to work together. and then you see hungary doing what it is doing to refugees. the choice europe will have to make is, how are we going to reach the point where we should those other people do , are we going to reach the point where we should those boat people dead? once more grain of hope has been the announcement from the ethiopian government about the border do that struck with eritrea years ago, the reason for the enforced construction in eritrea, 12% of the eritrean population refugees, that is the solution,

what are these leaders doing in europe and the west in your youth, after ways of reducing the flow, blocking the flow back at home? last week the libyan leaders were in paris, we talked about a package, you say money is not enough but a few... the most appalling refugee camps... and he keeps talking about it, the way he tries to convince angella to listen up... he doesn't want any of those migrants. libya was wrecked by france,

by britain, by the us, making unilateral decision. but you don't go in and destroy a country without knowing what is going to happen next. there was a cry for help from benghazi and the united nations. the west is so utterly ignorant... would it have been better to let him do what he wanted to do? if we are going to go in and the same thing with iraq you've got to have a ten year plan and you've got to know the society. the victorians, the imperialists, when they went into the middle east they spoke the language is, even the bedouin tribal and bridges, they knew the societies, which they took control of. we are in the middle of this great gap of information and knowledge and trust and then we go in. i don't think it helps.

as we look at the end of the g7 summit that perhaps has no place any more in your collective view, what is your hope for what might emerge, if we can get beyond this uncertain phase? does human creativity give you cause for hope? i don't know. i wish i did know. but i think yasmin is right that what we are seeing is the unravelling of that post—war consensus which has been going on slowly for some time. i remember in 2003 tony blair saying we needed to rewrite the refugee convention. the world has changed,

those rules were set up in a sort of atlanticist world. we have a very different economic structure, we have the rise of china and india and much migration flows but those basic values about human rights, about making peace the geneva convention and all those things seem to me to be absolutely essential. it seems to me horrible truth that about human beings, in times of uncertainty people to authoritarian frightened right wing regimes. we will leave it there, maria, yasmin, eunice, agnes, no time for the metoo movement this week but i'm sure we will be talking about it shortly. that's it for dateline this week. thank you for watching. good afternoon.

some of us today have seen some threatening looking skies and sharp showers, but many of us have been lucky enough to have some blue sky and sunshine, and temperatures are responding nicely out there. now, the remainder of the weekend looks as though it is going to follow a similar pattern. we will continue to see some dry weather, with decent sunny spells around, and feeling quite warm, but if you do get the threatening looking skies, some pretty sharp thundery downpours. now in the last few hours today, the thundery downpours have been through the channel isles. we've seen some nuisance showers through wales and a stripe of cloud through the midlands and eastern england, which is making it feel rather cool and disappointing really. some showers will continue for a time across the highlands of scotland, before fading away overnight. so the remainder of the day we will see the showers easing away, a bit of patchy mist and fog forming through the night, and overnight lows between nine and 11! degrees. so we start off tomorrow, sunday, on a cloudy murky note, but the sunshine is strong at this

time of year, it will burn most of that cloud away nicely, we will see some sunshine coming through, and again, thosee temperatures are likely to respond. showers, if anything, a little bit further east in scotland and northern england tomorrow. still one or two into wales as well, but with some sunshine, highs likely of 23 degrees. still the risk of a few thundery downpours for the channel isles on monday, and at the same time this weak weather front pushing into the far north—west. that should really produce more in the way of cloud and the odd spot of rain for scotland and maybe for northern ireland on monday. elsewhere, again, dry, settled, sunny and still pleasantly warm out there. again the temperatures likely to be into the low 20s — that is the low 70s in terms of fahrenheit. cooler on north sea coasts and cooler still really as we move into tuesday. we see the winds swinging round to more of a northerly direction, you can see the isobars almost vertical across the uk. that weak weather front continues to sit up into the north, so here we will have a spot or two of rain moving across the borders. a little more cloud around on monday, and with that northerly breeze temperatures perhaps pegged back a degree or so. highest values by the middle of tuesday afternoon look likely to be 15 to 20 degrees the high. as we move out of tuesday,

into wednesday and thursday, there are signs of things becoming more unsettled, with some wetter weather pushing into the west, and a degree or so cooler. enjoy the rest of your weekend. this is bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at 5pm. to protect the us, from what he calls ‘unfair trade practices' ya na yana is going to change ioo%. people cannot continue to do that. we are like the piggy bank. that ends. anger as the chief executive of network rail is made a cbe in the queen's birthday honours, despite chaos on the railways. other names on the honours list, classics professor mary beard becomes a dame, and footballer jermain defoe receives an obe — we'll be speaking to him in around half an hour.