this is bbc news. the headlines — pressure is mounting on saudi arabia almost two weeks after journalist jamal khashoggi disappeared while visiting the country's consulate in istanbul. the uk, france and germany have issued a rare joint statement demanding answers and saying they're treating the incident with the utmost seriousness. donald trump's defended his relationship with kim jong—un. speaking to us broadcaster cbs, president trump said the two had good chemistry and that his approach to the north korean leader had seen an end to threats being made to the west. the eu's chief negotiator michel barnier says some key brexit issues are still unresolved including the backstop to avoid a hard border in ireland. he hosted unscheduled talks with his uk counterpart to try and make progress just days ahead of a crucial meeting of eu leaders. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk,

i'm stephen sackur. the united states of america is a republic divided. the trump presidency has exposed fissures that run along lines of race, gender, education and culture. in next month's midterm elections, the fight for political power will be between the two traditional parties, republican and democrat, but perhaps a different sort of activism is needed to deliver real change. my guest is kimberle crenshaw, a professor of law, social activist, and an influential advocate of the idea of intersectionality. is it the group, not the individual, that matters most in today's america? kimberle crenshaw in philadelphia,

welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. let me ask you this. do you believe in the "united" in the united states of america? that is a country where all its citizens are equal under the law and share a sense of common purpose, shared values. do you believe in that? well, i believe — if you're asking me do i believe in the ideal of equality and shared values, equal citizenship, yes, of course. that is part of the current tradition of western liberalism. that's not really the issue we're

facing now, however. it is a matter of whether the values that we profess actually have any reflection in what's happening in the united states. one of the things that was so disturbing about the kavanaugh hearing is just watching the institution that is so important in maintaining those ideals basically being over — overwrought with politics, with impartial — impartiality being rejected as a measurement of qualification for a judge. so those of us who were really concerned about the distance between the ideals and the reality of american society are really distraught at this point over the direction that the country is going in. right, and it is interesting to me that you immediately point

to the sort of toxic process around the appointment and the nomination process and appointment ofjudge brett kavanaugh to become a justice of the supreme court, and we all, of course, around the world watched that play out in washington, dc. and there is therefore a temptation to see that the trump presidency, with the kavanaugh nomination and a whole host of other things too, has in a sense created divisions, has sort of opened up wounds that weren't there before. but that can't be true, can it? he has perhaps more brutally exposed them, but they are pretty pre—existing. well, of course. i mean the united states is a country that's built on some tremendous violations of some of the very values that it's representative of, so, you know, slavery, genocide, long—standing patterns of segregation. i mean this is very much part of american history. the question is, how the country takes up those issues in the current moment.

does the fact that we are a post—slave society, a post—genocidal society, a colonial society, have any bearing in the way that we think about equality, what needs to be done in order to create a more equitable society? or is that something that not only gets passed over to yesterday, but something that actually is part of the idea that president trump is trying to manage and create a lot of political energy around ? when he says "make america great again", many people here, again, there is this nostalgia for the past. for many people here in america, the past is the last place

they want to go to. it is very disturbing to hear politics being framed as we were better back when we segregated, we were better back when we did not allow a lot of immigrants into the country. so it's very much a part of notjust exacerbating those old wounds, but actually saying those are normatively acceptable in this particular period. well, what you raised there is a very interesting question about the direction of travel and ijust wonder, i'm very mindful of the fact that you, your younger self, was a lawyer who was offering legal counsel to anita hill in that very well remembered hearing for clarence thomas to get through his nomination to get onto the supreme court. that was extraordinarily painful and contentious, and here were are, however many years, i guess 27 years later, watching another extraordinarily painful and contentious supreme court nomination process unfold. what is the direction of travel? with your experience then and your observations now,

what do you feel? well, it's interesting that you should ask that. i'm here in philadelphia because just last night i was on a panel with anita hill, and we were talking about precisely that. what do we make of, 27 years later, the fact that this issue is still being presented in many of the same ways, to the same end? and with all things, there is, one has to look at both what has gotten better and what has not. i think what has gotten better is the idea, or at least the recognition that these claims have to at least appear to be taken more seriously than they were taken 27 years ago. so we were able to see that in the way, for example, that dr blasey ford was questioned not by an all—white male judiciary committee, but by rachel mitchell. i think there was a recognition that the optics were important,

i think there was a recognition on the democratic side as well. one of the differences that i noticed between what happened with anita hill and dr blasey ford was that the democrats in this instance were very clear that they saw the allegations as credible, they saw her as credible, and they wanted to affirm her. that's not what happened with anita hill, even the democrats more or less, as i said, left her hanging out to dry. so there is a recognition that these are very important issues and they cannot be dismissed. on the other hand, the endgame is pretty much the same. and as i look at what we learned two weeks ago is that a woman still has to run the gauntlet of credibility, she still has to show an appropriate level of trauma, she has to be truthful, she can't be overly resentful or angry, and dr blasey ford

was able to do that. so most of the commentators, even on fox tv — that leans to supporting president trump — everybody was saying this is a very, very grave situation, it is very, very serious. so it was a testament to her credibility. you are a civil rights activist and also a feminist, as well, of course, as being a law professor. you've written a lot about intersectionality, the different forms of oppression, and how they work sometimes in concert, sometimes in different ways, and how people need to be aware and react to that. to put it bluntly, do you think america found it easier to relate to the issues raised by dr ford, who of course is a white woman, than they found it to relate to everything that anita hill said, where she was a black woman complaining about sexual harassment from a black man? i absolutely think that race has

a lot to do with credibility. i think that the fact that they were both white, both elite, that she was seen as more credible, more relatable. that's the part of the story that is a reflection about racial differences, both in the stereotypes that women carry with them and their ability to be believed. at the end of the day, however, we still live in a patriarchal society, and so even though she was found more credible, even though many people said that they could relate to her, at the end of the day, it's more or less that itjust didn't matter. so yes, she might be believed. i mean susan collins, who was —

in cast, in many ways, the deciding vote, said that she believed her, she believed that this trauma had happened. she didn't necessarily believe she was remembering correctly that it wasjudge kavanaugh who did it, and at the end of the day, whatever happened to her did not really matter injudging the qualifications ofjudge kavanaugh. so i think at the end of the day, what we see here is what i sometimes call discursive asymmetry. she had to do a lot to be credible and even when she did all that, the burden basically shifted to him, and there was virtually nothing he could do that would have destroyed his credibility. if that performance that we saw, including a loss of temper, threats to democrats, if all that wasn't enough to undermine his credibility, one wonders, short of coming in and throwing himself on the ground and saying "i did it, i did it", whether anything would have allowed christine blasey

ford to prevail. so it really is a recognition that there is a huge gap between what men can do and get away with, and what women can do and actually be taken seriously. yeah, i should just add, of course, that brett kavanaugh denies all of those allegations and that was seen throughout the hearings. but here's the basic question i have for you, because your analysis of the way society works and your work on this, what you call intersectionality, it has become extremely influential across america. but would it be fair to say that you see the key components in society, in america today, as being groups and group identities, rather than individuals? is that a fair reflection of how you see things? your group identity subject to disempowerment or power,

so the entire conversation that we've been having over the last couple of weeks has been about men, it's been about women, it's been about republicans, it's been about democrats. everybody is engaging in this discourse... right, but i guess the point would be that men and women, within their genders, have a whole range of opinions on brett kavanaugh and a whole bunch of other stuff too. i suppose the charge... so are we talking about opinions or are we talking about experiences? so the question really comes down to, are there differences in the kind of experience that people have, and can those differences be mapped onto things like gender? can they be mapped onto things like race? i think one of the things that could be the silver lining, i don't know, from what happened in the hearings, it's fairly clear that men have a different range of expressive possibility without being penalised for it.

if one could simply imagine dr blasey ford coming in and spewing the venom and the rhetoric thatjudge kavanaugh did and still be seen as credible, if one can even imagine it, then we will be imagining a world in which patriarchy has significantly lost some of its constraint. but that's not the world we live in. dr christine blasey ford knew that, many of the women who have experienced sexual abuse know that, as well as many men know that. so this is not a matter of individual versus group, it's a matter of how our society shapes, how different groups of people are interpreted, who's seen as having the ability to get angry and still be taken seriously, and who is not given that same luxury. that's the politics of patriarchy playing out in american society today. and i get the sense, obviously notjust from this

conversation but your writings, too, that you are angry. you are angry about the way america works and your view of what is a patriarchal society, that oppresses groups including women and minorities, is something that makes you angry. but to change it, you have to reach out beyond your own groups, whether it be women or whether it be african americans. you know, to build a winning coalition, you have got to go national and you've obviously got to include men and you've got to include a range of ethnicities. so how do you go about building those coalitions? that cooperation? i guess i have to roll back for a moment and suggested that, as you mentioned, you are familiar with my writing, in my writing, the whole point of intersectionality is to talk about the kind of coalitions that are necessary in order to realise our stated values and objectives. there are many applications

of intersectionality across any number of differences, across any number of forms of discrimination. one of the points i made in the new york times article i wrote two weeks ago was to say that the failure of a coalition between anti—racists and feminists was one of the factors that led to the elevation of clarence thomas over and against the claims that were made by anita hill. that what i argued there was that there is a common history of anti—racism and feminism found in the fact that the very term sexual harassment and the very acknowledgement that sexual harassment is in fact discrimination was largely set forward by african american women plaintiffs who were experiencing discrimination when they were working. there is a long history of african american women bringing gender into anti—racism and bringing anti—racism into feminism. sure there is but some

african american activist women, feminists and civil rights campaigners, have looked at the history, have looked, as you say, at the failure at times of white feminists to make common cause with their black sisters and frankly, some of them have had enough. i'm quoting on here, tamela gordon who says, "i find myself at the end of my intersectional feminist road, it's time to hop back into survival mode, ditch this dumpster fire and live by a black feminist agenda". ...and? and the point is... i could quote plenty of people who actually say the opposite. i think the point is, and i find this very interesting, folks who are concerned about too much groupness respond to moments like these by showing there are a few individuals who think differently.

of course we don't all think alike. so having a quote from someone who is exasperated by the lack of allyship of white women is not surprising! i'm often frustrated by it as well. in fact, only 48% of white women actually believe dr blasey ford. there is a far greater racial gap in american society now than a gender gap. that doesn't mean that gender is insignificant, that doesn't mean that patriarchy isn't working... sure. ..and it doesn't mean we don't need intersectional politics to fight both of them at the same time. you described the problem. i get the intersectionality argument that you can bring different groups of oppressed people together to make common cause and that can make a very big difference, i get that. what i'm moving toward is how

you reach out, if you can reach out at all, to those particular groups and particularly maybe white working class people, men and women interestingly, because let's not forget, a majority, albeit a small one, a majority of white women voted for donald trump. is there any way that you can see that you can use your arguments and powers of persuasion to make inroads amongst those groups if we call them groups? many of us are. i think one of the challenges is to recognise when we're hearing the talking points from the other side, the idea that there haven't been efforts to reach out across groups. the idea that the civil rights legacy wasn't always a movement that was multiracial and in fact bipartisan. our challenge today is not only maintaining and building those ties but resisting the narratives that suggest that we are alljust separate groups and we are not really engaging in efforts to reach

across many of the differences. in fact, the last week opens up even more possibilities. everything we've been seeing suggests that many women, particularly those, that 53% that in fact voted for trump, may be rethinking that. but let's not see pie in the sky here. race has always been a determining factor in american politics so it's not surprising this is a challenge for us. the question now is, does that group sensibility over—determine everything else? including a president who many people call the predator in chief including someone who's on the supreme court who basically said what goes around, comes around. these are moments where the divisions are making themselves so foundational that it might create more of a shift than we've seen

in the past. have do you feel now there's a bit of time distance between his presidency and the present day, how do you feel about barack obama? with the midterms coming up, he's re—entered the political frame, making some more pointed political speeches in recent weeks. "this whole notion that has sprung up recently about democrats needing to choose between trying to appeal to the white working class or voters of colour and women and lgbt americans, that is all nonsense. i got votes from every demographic". do you see obama as somebody that democrats need to listen to and be mindful of because he had the right approach? or do you think, in retrospect, ba rack obama actually wasn't radical enough, he didn't do enough, to actually change the structures of american politics? i think it is tough for a president to actually change the structures

of american politics. i have my disagreements with barack obama on a range of issues, some of them having to do with the failure to actually even have a rhetoric that identifies some of the structures that continue to create inequalities. i took issue with him, for example, on my brother's keeper. it was a racialjustice programme but it excluded women and girls. but that was a minor difference within a broader reality that we are a country that shapes ourselves around certain values and i think he tried to perform that. and it is true, that he was able to win the support, the votes, of the white working class, he was able to win those districts in pennsylvania, in michigan, that were really important.

it is true, it is possible to win votes and create coalitions across race and class and he's a good reminder of the fact that this isn't an inevitable dimension of american politics. just a final thought on that, as we go into election season, the democrats are trying to create a winning progressive coalition. it is interesting, isn't it? ron brownstei n reflected on this with some figures from the pew foundation recently. he said that democratic voters are clearly divided. he said, "democrat must weigh the culturally—liberal instincts of their mostly secular wing of upscale whites with the often more traditional inclinations of their african american and latino voters." again, in this world of intersectionality and group—based politics, it is a very complex set of relationship and attitudes and values, isn't it? i'll make the complexity even greater. the most mobilised piece

of the democratic coalition is african american women. they're the ones that gave the victory to roy moore, the senator who the first democrat to be elected from alabama in a generation. there were black women all over the ballot so the real question and challenge is how can we not only use black women as the wheels on the bus, but how do we actually put them in the driver's seat? what are the agendas that actually speak to them? if we can figure that out, we'll probably be able to figure out how to speak across the working class because black women are disproportionately working class, and we'll probably be able to build those ties that at one point made the democratic coalition a winning political mobilised coalition. that's what we're looking for in this mid—term election. we'll see. we will indeed see. kimberle crenshaw, thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk.

hello there, good morning. the last 2a hours has seen the number of flood warnings reducing as the wettest of the weather moved its way a little bit further east. gradually, everything will come in from the atlantic over the next few days. this band of cloud working its way towards our shores by tuesday. that area of cloud contains a bit of ex—hurricane michael. that's going to slip its way into iberia. that's where we're feeding up all our cloud and outbreaks of rain at the moment, so more of that coming back into england and perhaps into wales as well, a cold start for scotland and northern ireland. sunny skies developing here with a few showers

in the north—west. this area of rain might not be in this exact position, affecting the south—west for a while, south and east wales, it's moving its way northwards and becoming lighter and maybe missing the rain in the south—east, sunshine later giving the temperatures a boost but sunniest skies will be further north in scotland and northern ireland, where it's 13 or 14 degrees. that weather front is bringing the rain into england and parts of wales, but as we head into tuesday, it's much lighter by this stage, a much weaker weather front. we've got another coming in from the atlantic, that's responsible for the rain. ahead of it, a band of cloud across england and wales and it could be misty and murky before it brightens up as the wind picks up, and our weather front brings this narrow band of rain from scotland and northern ireland into the irish sea. followed by some blustery showers. it'll be windy in the north—west of scotland. warm when the sun comes out in the south—east and east anglia. the windiest weather close to this area of low pressure, and that's pushing this weather front in to england and wales, but it's slowing down. there will be some discrepancy as to where it's going to stop. at the moment, now, it looks

like the south—east might be brighter. the band of cloud and not much rain stuck across the wash into the south—west of england. behind that, more sunshine following on, where it should be a lovely day for the time of year. those temperatures still not bad as well. it will turn colder overnight. yes, we've got an area of high pressure building in from the south—west, but there's some colder air around the top of that in between these weather fronts, so a cold start to thursday and still a bit grey in southern counties of england even though that weather front is out of the way. but away from here, plenty of sunshine. it looks like being a nice day. temperatures won't be quite so high i think on thursday because of that chillier start, but plenty of sunshine to come. we'll start to see some changes by the time we get to friday. still got high pressure for a while, but there are these weather fronts toppling into that and that will increase the breeze and pick up some more cloud and a bit of rain in the north—west. this band of cloud and rain will trickle down into scotland and northern ireland. may get stuck across the far north of england and north wales later in the day.

further south, some sunshine after a cool start, with some mist and fog. this is the briefing, i'm sally bundock. our top stories — going round in circles. britain's brexit negotiator makes an impromptu trip to brussels but finds no way forward on key issues. angela merkel‘s conservative allies suffer massive losses in bavaria's state elections — what will it mean for her coalition? pressure mounts on saudi arabia over the disappearance of jamal khashoggi. britain, france and germany demand answers. italy is on a collision course with brussels over it's planned spending spree but rome says it won't back down on costly election promises.