hello, this is bbc news. the headlines. protestors calling for a referendum on the final brexit deal are marching through central london this afternoon, heading to a rally in parliament square. saudi arabia admits journalist jamal khaggogi was killed in the consulate in istanbul — the uk says those responsible must be held to account. two men have been charged with murdering father ian tomlin, who was beaten to death outside his home in south—west london. europe and japan have launched two spacecraft on a mission to mercury. the joint project will take the probes seven years to reach their destination. next on bbc news, it's dateline london hello and welcome to dateline london, the programme

which brings together leading political commentators in the uk with the international correspondents who file their stories with dateline london. this weekend, saudi arabia announced that the journalist jamal khashoggi is dead. will that long awaited admission, dismissals and arrests be enough to restore business as usual in its relations with the outside world? and, after theresa may flirts uncertainly with the idea of an extended goodbye to the europan union, has she just hastened her own? with me, the sudanese writer nisreen malik, a specialist in arab affairs, stefanie bolzen from germany's die welt, who was at this week's eu summit, the usjournalist greg katz from the associated press, and the british political commentator adam raphael, who's been prowling the corridors of power in whitehall and westminster since the 19705. after more than two weeks of denial, saudi arabia announced that jamal khashoggi is dead. the journalist vanished

after entering the saudi consulate in istanbul. king salman‘s government says he died in a fight. two officials have been dismissed, one a close aide to crown price mohammad bin salman, the country's de facto ruler. mbs, as he's known, promised to remake his country by weening it off its dependence on oil. but, because of mr khashoggi, many have pulled out of an event intended to attract foreign investment. that should have been taking place and will go ahead, with many absent, later this week. will this announcement do anything to dissipate this sense of unease about what happened to jamal khashoggi? i don't think so. i think this is targeted very much at administrations in the us and europe, to give some plausible deniability. it is a really thin cover, basically transparent. one should not dignify it with analysis, i think. i think it is very much directed towards people who want to say, look, we've done the work, there is an investigation. we can't draw a direct line

of culpability to mbs. a layer lower than that, the investment banks, the corporates, the media, they know what it is and they can't justify it any longer. politically, it is still touch and go. it's been a surprising story, i did not think it would stay in the headlines for two weeks. it has touched a nerve and i don't know over the next two or three days whether... trump said it was credible, which was saying, thank you for giving me this, now i can take this to the media and say it's credible. but republican senators are bubbling with frustration underneath. public companies with shareholders have been pulling out of this investment conference. the cynical part of me thinks it will run out of steam at some point and we will move on. but it has been surprising in the past couple of weeks, and i think there might be enough interest in it from the public and media, everyone is talking

about it, to put enough pressure on the us administration to do something that would make life very hard for mohammed bin salman. there is a real dilemma for the trump administration. they are in the process of reordering, as they see it, theirforeign policy. we've got these new sanctions that are going to be imposed on iran. presumably the last thing they then want to do is sanction the other big oil producer and ratchet up prices at home just before mid—term elections. yeah, this is a strategic and political disaster for the trump administration, and he has been very direct, and you can certainly disagree, but he has been unequivocal that the us business interests, the $100 billion plus, minus a little bit, of arms sales with the saudis is more important to him than what one could politely call a human rights concern, the dismemberment of a journalist inside a foreign consul. so he's been very clear, the administration does not

want to sanction. it doesn't want to risk the arms sales. i am not sure congress will disagree but it's impossible to tell. you talk about the business concerns, the banks, the insurance companies. i'm not convinced they are going to pull back after this conference. the conference is sort of a red herring, it's a lost cause, but moving forward six weeks, ten weeks, i don't know how much is going to change except i think mbs has been permanently tainted by this and we can't see how that's going to play out. and that presumably is a significant consequence of this, whatever happens in terms of the terrible death of this journalist, the implications fora man who, just a few months ago was being feted as the great hope for the future of saudi arabia. for example, jared kushner, president trump's son—in—law, investing much hope in him as a useful conduit for resolving all kinds of conflicts. i think that's right. i share, i'm afraid, a slightly sceptical view on how long this will last.

for america, trump has been, one could say, at least frank and honest about his motives. this country will be much less frank and honest, but we have just as much at stake, if not more than the united states in saudi, with huge arms deals that british companies have, and we depend on it and a lot ofjobs depend on it. the uk's 18th biggest export market. so there is outrage. this is an absolutely unprecedented act. but i think what one's got to be quite careful about is that we will probably never find out precisely the actual responsibility for what happened, how directly it was caused by mbs or whether it was just done on the sort of, who will rid me of this murderous priest sort of principle, and i suspect... saudi certainly, it's not in their interests to reveal this, and there's not going to be... they wouldn't cooperate with an independent investigation, so it's always going to be left,

i suspect, a little unclear how directly he was involved. stephanie, what about the kind of broader implications of this? you could argue that this is a terrible case for an individual but thousands of people are dying in the war in yemen, which was begun by saudi arabia to defend the government that had been ousted there by the houthi rebels, and yet not really much public reaction. one journalist dies in terrible circumstances and the media don't let it go for weeks and weeks. yeah, that's a fair argument, but of course there is something broader here, and this murder is in a much bigger, more global, more complex background, with the murders we have recently also seen in europe. almost a year ago, an investigative journalist was murdered in malta, and then one in slovakia, and then recently in bulgaria, though we are not quite sure yet. but there is an impression created thatjournalists who do criticaljournalism, or investigative journalists, which actually is theirjob,

are becoming targets, and this is also in that sense, that's one reason also why this is getting so much attention. it's reflecting the state of what we call the fourth power in our countries, which is so important to protect. and who would have thought that president erdogan, whose country has locked up a lot ofjournalists in recent years, would effectively emerge as a sort of champion of criticaljournalism against governments in power? there is a cynical aspect of that, especially for me, for our paper, because one of our colleagues was for a year arrested and imprisoned in turkey recently. but i think there is also a straw that broke the camel's back element to this, because of the war in yemen, because, particularly in more left wing media circles, there's a frustration with this narrative that mbs was a reformer. this was not a narrative that was universally adopted. arabs, saudis have been saying, he's not. people are very gullible,

particularly the united states, and there's this pr... people see what they want to see. yeah, and there's a history of people seeing new royal regimes in the middle east as reformers, and never learning the lessons from that. so i think that there is also, there are a bunch of things going on. there are people going, we told you that mbs was not going to be any different and, if anything, he was going to be worse, and the war in yemen was the sort of canary in the coal mine with that. but aren't there some things that he has done that are in saudi arabia's interest? the obvious one is to try and shift away from oil dependency and build an economy. but we haven't really seen many tangible manifestations of that. saudi arabia's barely... it's not the kind of country that has diversified its financial services industry the way the united arab emirates has done, for example. they've not reached out to tourism.

they really can't, because the country is so conservative. he's made all these gestures and paid millions of dollars to pr firms, and did lift the ban on women driving, but then arrested a lot of female activists that campaigned for women's driving, he locked up a bunch of princes and shook them down for money, and there was also a murder, allegedly, in that lock—up. so there is a sense that people have been saying, we told you mbs was not who you thought he was, we told you the war in yemen was a result of the impunity of global immunity gives saudi arabia, and there is also, ithink, a larger, more historical frustration since 9/11, where people have been saying, al-qaeda, 9/11, isis, the war in iraq, these are all fallouts, and people never really wanting to confront the root cause of all these issues, which is the cynical instrumentalisation of religion in saudi arabia, and therefore tinkering at the edges, invading afghanistan, invading iraq,

banning muslims from chad and sudan from entering the us, because they can't really deal with the saudi problem. and this has been a focuser of that, i think. let's talk a bit about president erdogan in turkey, because turkey, although officially taking a relatively neutral view of this, it launched an investigation, concerned by what happened, but not making any public allegations. privately, a lot of allegations have appeared in state sympathetic media and media organs that are supportive of the turkish government. lots of turkish sources being quoted. what do you think turkey gets out of this? i think what they are hoping for is something behind the scenes, some sort of quid pro quo that we will never find out that unless there are turkish sources who leak it out. but i think they clearly have some either physical or audio, some sort of tangible forensic, maybe the wrong word, but some evidence

that the saudis‘ regime would very much like to never see the light of day and, in exchange for deep sixing that, keeping that out of public view forever, the turks may be getting some strategic or economic and financial considerations that will all be off the books and under the table. but clearly saudi is in a position to help them out. and erdogan ends up in some kind of leadership role. basically, he wants to get something out of saudi arabia for this. they are not going to get away with it for free. whether it is some sort of political ballast arrangement, a financial arrangement, what turkey will get at the end of this, what it's trying to manoeuvre itself into getting is having something over the saudi regime that publicly and clearly contradicts the narrative that they put out, and it's a very delicate dance, because the moment the saudis get too bolshy or cocky, the turks can say, we can torpedo this in a second because we have physical or audio recordings, so they have positioned themselves... just one more thing

is that the americans want saudi to be able to cast its narrative unquestioned as well, so they now have two parties that they can implicitly blackmail. they are in a good position. they've played a blinder, very impressive. and he can position himself as a champion of the free press. yes, and i know how many people are not right now. you were talking about delicate dances. theresa may certainly been involved in a few of those recently. really nice segue! theresa may extending the implementation period for brexit, you understand, the period between being wholly in and wholly out of the european union. so, by dangling the suggestion in front of the media, she at least ensured that the headlines after this week's summit with the heads of government of the eu's 28 member countries didn't scream deadlock. this tactical distraction has done damage to both with the remainers and the leavers voicing their frustration. mrs may has also weakened one of the strongest arguments for her own survival, that the critical negotiating weeks before a brexit deal are so short this is not the time to change the leader.

stephanie, you were there in the heart of this summit. oh, yes. what was it like? how was the atmosphere? well, somebody claimed that actually inside the room, where they were sitting, the 27 after theresa may had left, it was pretty boring. they didn't really know what to talk about any more, and it was only brexit on the agenda, and what more is there to say? saying this, i think, behind closed doors, there was a lot going on. far more than the impression is now. there is a lot of dancing and a lot of showarounds, so angela merkel and emmanuel macron and others went to the grand place in brussels and had a beer and were chilling out. it was great pr. but, what actually happened, and that was interesting, the next day was the press conference by the german chancellor, and she said, she didn't smile, she managed not to smile, but she said a cheeky thing. she said, yes, northern ireland is tricky, but it's an intellectually interesting challenge. it's an intellectually interesting task.

and you would think, well, if it's an intellectually interesting task, you should actually be able to solve it, and i think that's where we are now. i think by november we will see another summit and, by december, the brexit deal is done and all the protests in london and other protests anywhere else are not going to change that. and you are confident that will happen? no... as far as one can never be confident about this! i am pretty confident we will see a deal between the uk and the eu soon, but what then happens in the houses of parliament, and again, the hard brexiteers are with the back against the wall. do they choose no deal? or do theyjust get their brexit, whatever it is? adam, in a sense, that is something the british government has been counting on, doesn't it? the idea that, when they actually see something concrete, they really won't want to reject it because there will be such relief, but is that kind of an unduly optimistic? i don't disagree with anything my colleague here has said. i think she's got it absolutely right. there will probably be a deal of some sort,

but it's a deal on the withdrawal deal, leaving all the difficult issues to be kicked down the road, further and further down the road, and this is why this transition argument, frankly, was never was never realistic, to assume that a transition deal could be done within 21 months. maybe 21 years is more likely! so it's absurd, and one of the troubles that mrs may has now is that she's lost the trust of her party, notjust the hard brexiteers, the nutters, as i call them, but actually right across the party. because she has always breached her red lines, first on the customs union, on the single market, now on the extension, she is not believed and she keeps on, from a very weak position, being forced further and further away from her original positions. i agree also with stephanie, what happens in parliament is absolutely unknowable.

it depends. obviously, the europeans are interested in giving her a deal which she can actually sell to the house of commons. it's not in their interest to produce an unsellable deal. however, the europeans' view of what is sellable and what isn't is really unknowable, and no one knows, not even the chief whip or any of the key experts in parliament know how these votes are going to go. it could well end in a total stalemate in parliament in january or december, january period. in which case, anything could happen. we could have a general election. we could have a call for a second referendum. we could have a leadership election. so we are in a mess, that's the sort of short summary of where we are. that's cheered us all up! i think the main issue now is time. i think we are just running out of time. everyone is running out of time, and the problem when that happens is that reality starts to take over for you, and the risk now is that

corporations, private companies, regular tory bodies will start preparing for a no—deal brexit, and once that happens it becomes a self—fulfilling prophecy. so the time crunch now, i think, is the biggest risk factor, because once too many things are kicked down the road, you can't resolve them all at the same time, and there is so much politics involved and so much careerism, particularly in the british parliament. so many people's reputations have been staked on brexit, that there might be a no—deal brexit just for the sake of it, rather than because it's what people believe is the right thing to do. you have to draw a distinction between a withdrawal deal, which is eminently achievable on the terms that stephanie described, and the trading deal, which is actually not achievable at all... and no agreement on the border between northern ireland and the republic of ireland. she will probably get her withdrawal deal. it's possible she may not get it

through the house of commons, but she will get it, some sort. but it's the next stage which is so impossible, so you could leave everything up in the air and we could be out by march 29th. that is unfortunately the sort of fudge which people like me, a remainer, fear the most. if you get a withdrawal deal, then who knows how parliament votes? if they vote no, the uk crashes out, and then does she remain prime minister or what? what happens on march 30th, for example? i mean, is anybody going to deal with the jobs that will be lost in the interim and in the first 12 months after that? is there any political reckoning down the road? it's very hard for me to see the next 12 months here. i'm sort of clueless. i think it's incredibly difficult. i suspect, if she gets a withdrawal deal, then we are out by march 29th, then the party will turn on her and she will have

served her use, she will have got britain that far and they will then look for a new leader. without a general election. but the consequences of that, in terms ofjobs and employment, i think the short term consequences will be very serious for this country, but i speak from a committed position on this, probably not a neutral, journalistic position. ijust think it's going to be very frustrating, even if nothing goes as it's supposed to go, and if you look at the track record in parliament, theresa may won all the votes. that's why i think she will also win that very crucial vote in the end. so you think, in the end, presented with something concrete, however reluctantly they hold their noses... yes, and it might be by one or two votes in her favour and she will win it, but then what comes afterwards will be even more frustrating. michel barnier, the negotiator forthe european union, said, from then on, we are going to have at least ten negotiations at the same time to get to a free—trade arrangement. they only have 21 months. it's nothing. usually, a trade deal takes up to ten years.

so the reality is that, in the rather odd way that theresa may raised this extending the transition, and saying effectively, i'm not suggesting this, i am not proposing this, but it could happen... it will happen. actually, it should perhaps have been something that had been made clearer much earlier on, that the transition period was unrealistic. but then you give both hardliners on both sides even more arguments. a lot of things haven't been said publicly therefore, because it's going to be dragging on, it's going to be frustrating, and that's why i think we might still see... as you say, we have no idea what's going to happen in a year or two years. it might be completely different. stephanie, you mentioned angela merkel‘s little joke in her news conference. she can be funny. she can be very funny. but i shouldn't imagine there being many laughs around the chancellery in the last week or so, especially after the elections that her sister party endured. what about her own position? she's got another important regional election coming up in a week or so. yes, in essen. how vulnerable is she? she is very vulnerable, and we should very much look at the december cdu party conference, and there is a lot of talk that

something might happen there. she might be even declaring she is going. there is a need in the party for a change of leadership. there were some i’uitioui’s in brussels that actually she is going for the head of the commission next year at the european parliamentary elections, to replace jean—claude juncker. i mean, this is complete gossip, but... we love gossip on this programme! if it is gossip, it's fine. and gossip always tells you something. absolutely. and she lost some inner party fights recently, too. she lost to people who were very truthful followers. so she is very vulnerable in her party, and maybe that's why she is in such a good mood, like theresa may is dancing on the stage. there's nothing to lose now. it's the liberation of knowing that you are coming towards the final act, but in the end you may leave the stage, but the problem is left behind and, for someone, as adam was saying, who succeeds theresa may or succeeds angela merkel, brexit will remain

a problem to be resolved. the one out from this, and it's probably unlikely, is a second referendum, if you want to preserve... or another referendum, but we don't know what terms... if you want to preserve the conservative party, brexit will be hung around their necks and its consequences, if you want to preserve it, one way out, but it doesn't seem to be the way out at the moment, could be a second referendum. it would depend on a paralysis in parliament, none of the votes going through, and then it'sjust possible that is may might reverse her position on that and go for that. it's unlikely, but it's certainly a possibility, and there are attractions for all parties in a second referendum, because frankly parliament is in a mess and politicians cannot agree or decide on a way forward, and they all know that they don't want to be hung around their necks what is going to happen. but i don't believe a second referendum could be any solution. i agree. the country is split.

if you go outside london, which i have done recently, and you talk to people outside london who are not even stark leavers, they say, if i have to vote another time round, i will do the same or now i will even vote leave. i agree. that's fine, that is fine. if there is a second vote and they do actually vote a second time, they will know exactly what they are voting on and the politicians will respond. they will have a clear mandate. one of the problems mrs may had, and one doesn't want to sympathise too much with her, but one of the problems was the incredibly narrow 52—48 vote, and she also had these very hardline brexiteers on her side. so this was the difficulty. a second referendum would actually provide... they talk over each other. i think we are in a worse position, in terms of what we know we are voting on now than we did in the first referendum, because it's now become an ideological issue. it's become a culture war. people will vote even more irrationally than they did last time because now... you have a very cynical view of politics! i don't at all. brexit happened. i think that is a lot of reasons.

according to my knowledge of the situation. i think a second referendum would be really divisive and i think people will vote along ideological lines as opposed to on the detail, which nobody is really paying attention to much. they didn't know the detail before. they haven't got a clue what was going to go on. we've posed a question that undoubtedly we will return to again on this programme. for now, all of you, thank you all very much. thank you for your company. that's it from dateline london for this week. we are back the same time next week. join us then. until then, goodbye. hello. while most of us have been enjoying a sunny saturday afternoon, it's not been like that everywhere. for western scotland, thick cloud

and passing showers, and a rainbow over this castle, and it's notjust been scotland with stubborn cloud, it's also been grey in northern ireland and parts of north—west england. for most of england and wales and the north—east of scotland, we have seen cloud breaking up. this was the scene earlier in moret, and with sunshine we have also got the effect in north—east scotland to push temperatures up to 19. possibly 20 degrees the top temperature across this part of the wealth that is seven 01’ this part of the wealth that is seven or 8 degrees above average for this time. overnight, it's going to be cloudy for northern ireland, the cloud coming back in across scotland and rain pushing into the north—west, turning heavy for the western isles and highlands. clearer skies for england and wales, but there will be some mist and one or two fog patches in southern england, where it will be chilly, with temperatures down to two or three degrees in the countryside. any mist and fog patches will burn off and we

should see some sunshine. the best of it will be in southern and eastern areas. rain in northern ireland and scotland to start the day, pushing into england and wales while turning lighter and patchy. that is associated with a cold front, so noticeable contrast in temperatures, 17 in the south, but cooler in northern ireland and scotland, with temperatures more like 12. cooler for scotland, with temperatures more like 12. coolerfor some scotland, with temperatures more like 12. cooler for some with a drop of7 like 12. cooler for some with a drop of 7 degrees for some. looking at the picture on monday, this cold front continues to push south, taking the colder air from northern ireland and scotland and brings it into england and wales. it will be a fine day with plenty of sunshine but temperatures will be edging downwards typically around 12 to 1a degrees, so feeling a lot cooler and fresher for degrees, so feeling a lot cooler and fresherfor england degrees, so feeling a lot cooler and fresher for england and wales. in the north of scotland, some rain at times and fairly brisk winds, and underneath that belt ofjust 11 in stornoway. for the rest of the week

ahead, high pressure is often going to be close orjust to the west of the uk, so a mainly dry picture with some sunshine and the few mist and fog patches, but turning colder by the end of the week. this is bbc news. the headlines. organisers say over half a million protesters have marched through london, demanding another referendum on the uk's membership of the european union. saudi arabia admits journalist jamal khashoggi was killed in the consulate in istanbul — the united states says it's unaccpetable — but admits the countries have close ties. they have been a great ally in the middle east. we need them as a counterbalance to iran, so it's not the simplest solution. also coming up this hour. bepi—colombo blasts off! two satellites developed in europe and japan are on their way to the planet mercury. it's hoped that together they can resolve the puzzles of the mysterious planet closest to the sun. prince harry has opened the fourth

invictus games in sydney, dedicating them to all veterans who have served in dangerous conflicts.