hello and welcome to the final dateline london of 2018, a chance to look ahead to? the people, the countries and the events which, our panel predicts, will shape the year ahead. joining me today — abdel bari atwan, who writes on arab affairs, janet daley, whose column appears in the uk's sunday telegraph newspaper, maria margaronis from the weekly news magazine the nation, and the american michael goldfarb, host of the podcast, the first rough draft of history. i suppose this could be called that, michael. welcome to all of you. let's begin in our attempt to map out the territory for the year to come with the uk in europe. notjust brexit but perhaps other things on the horizon too. what are you looking for in the year ahead? the year ahead is a long projection! let's look at the week ahead or the next fortnight. i think we're definitely going to leave, there's no question about that even though there is an awful lot of trash talk and noise, it is difficult to know notjust what is going on but what everyone thinks because everyone is lying and dissing everybody else. but we will come out,

and i don't think there's going to be any majority in parliament for no deal but they will be some form of words and those will be fought to the last ditch. it is terribly important. so it will be 11th minute of the 11th hour? absolutely, last 30 seconds of the last minute. but it will eventually arrive at what will be called an exit because that is absolutely imperative now. i think the campaign for a second referendum is going to get nowhere because there is no base of popular support for such a thing and i think even the people sponsoring it are beginning to have cold feet because they realise that the result of a second referendum would be remarkably like the first. so that's a nonstarter. so we will come out and it's a question of the terms and whether we stand by the terms, because once you are out, you are out. then you can renegotiate the position. so we could actually be back into the negotiations?

no, no, no. one of the reasons the eu is making life so difficult is because they don't trust this particular british government and this group of tories standing behind the government to be people of their word. what kind of organisation threatens people who want to leave? mafia families, religious cults, secret societies. how many commissars have come to your office and said if you don't do what we told you, set by brussels, we will shoot you? there is no threat. that is completely rhetorical. the threats are we will be ruined economically by the club we are going to leave. they said we have to do this because otherwise everyone will want something. so there is a wonderful perfect union that once happened with but if we get a good deal, everybody else wants a deal. let's ask about the club we're leaving.

the poor club! what state will it be in, will it be diminished by the departure? yes, it will be but not as much as we will. the club we're going to leave has a lot of problems, the two main ones are austerity politics and a lack of democracy. the deeper problem is it has not managed to answer the fundamental problems of the uk and the rest of europe, which have to do with globalisation, the movement of industries abroad, all of those things. human migration as well, caused largely by wars and global inequality. and what we are seeing now, it's a terrible old chestnut, the phrase that the old has died at the new has yet to be born, morbid symptoms appear. and we have morbid symptoms everywhere in europe. i disagree here. i believe the saga which is taken place in britain, the constitutional crisis,

the uncertainty, the bad economy, the collapse of the stock market, about 1,000 points in the last just six months. i think this will make europe strong because the alternative is actually to stick together. the alternative is to keep the preserve... but growth in the eu is declining. they are having serious economic problems. italy is threatening the whole eurozone. the problem is more anarchy. look at britain, the situation of this country, it is a disaster. it's not! this economy is booming. we have the biggest high—tech industry of any country. we have more coders working in this country than san francisco and new york combined. so why are we seeing so many more homeless people on the street? that's a different issue altogether.

those are people who would have been on benefits, not people who would have been working. we have the lowest unemployment in living memory now. the crime rate is high. that's a policing problem. the stock market is collapsing, the pound is very weak, unemployment is high. national health is awful. what are you talking about? the pound being weak and is helpful to the economy, we had a devaluation of the pound which has helped our exports enormously. if you are exporting... the eu twisted our arm not part of europe so we can devalue which is something thatcher understood and that's always been the case. why can't we have a referendum? the mood of the people in this country... can i pose a different question —

will we have a general election next year? no. because labour doesn't want one and that's the secret to everything. might we never seejeremy corbyn fighting an election? i don't think so. i don't think he will fight one. i think labour even in its most insane moments, know not only that he wouldn't win but if he did it would be a disaster. i think he will be replaced and that is the real danger. who will replace him? at the moment, his shadow chancellor would be the candidate. it wouldn't be hilary benn or one of the moderate labour people or yvette cooper, that would be a plausible alternative but that won't happen because momentum has now got hold of all the levers. so theresa may has a year of security because she won the leadership election. yes, technically. in terms of her party,

you don't think there will be a general election so she will still be in place at the end of the year? yes, i think so. let's ask about the other problems is in europe that are unresolved. we talked a bit in passing about italy, the big one is france. yes, the gilet jaunes, this movement, i'm not even sure you would call it a movement but a populist uprising of yellow vests which began as a protest against macron's fuel tax, an enivronmentalist move, i think it is one of the strangest and most interesting thing in politics. they have strong traditional right—wing elements and nationalist, xenophobic and there is a left environmentalist wing to it and i think this is a response to the fact that neither left nor right has come up with an answer to the collapse of communities, of local cohesion, of localjobs. it's interesting because i thought about the gilet jaunes thing

for a while and i'm still not sure, they seem to come up almost as regularly as... it's almost cyclical like we get recessions. we had 0ccupy, we had giletjaunes, and before 0ccupy, we had g7 meetings and there is no coherence or ideology. 0ccupy had an ideology, the anti—globalisation movement had an ideology. what was the ideology? it came from the left, it was a bottom—up movement against inequality, against austerity. isn't that with the gilet jaunes? partly but it's also got a traditionally, socially conservative element with wasn't there before. i think, nobody that i've read reporting on it has been able to say it's this or that. with the globalisation of the economy and globalisation of labour, the globalisation of labour has tremendous consequences on indigenous communities and i'm afraid that the ruling intelligentsia

if you like, the governing classes, have not recognised this. but so does the globalisation of finance. we've got the left noticing that and the right notice and globalisation of labour. those are big thoughts we will come back to. in the programme in the coming year and probably becoming months, quite soon in terms of the economy. but bari, turning to the middle east. this is a region that is really changing almost as we speak. we have protests on the streets in sudan against the 30 year rule of bashir. we have the decisions by the united states to pull troops out of syria, and assad apparently resurgent with diplomatic sites reopening in damascus. what for you is the standout thing we should look for in the region in the year to come? the most important thing is how president trump decided to pull out all the american troops from syria.

this is really a turning point. there are several interpretations for it. the first interpretation that president trump decided to leave the middle east completely, he said we said we lost about $7 trillion in the middle east and gave nothing. so we had to cut our losses short and leave. there is another interpretation saying that americans are pulling out because there could be a war against iran in the coming year. or maybe in the coming two years. so they believe that. so he needs flexability in case that situation arises? he doesn't want troops in syria to be captive or a target for attacks on groups. i'm saying the second interpretation. israelis are pushing for that and are worried.

what's the consequences for the region for the decision he has taken? now, the syrians believe that they are the winners. assad is there, he was supposed to be deposed, fighting for him for the last seven years, now he is very solid and the arab nations, the arab governments, are restoring their relations with assad. the united arab emirates has reopened its embassy, bahrain is doing the same, bashir from sudan, his isolation is broken. could we see him welcomed back publicly formally into the family of arab nations? yes. there are a lot of preparations for that, the reopening of embassies first, second. there is an arab summit in march next year. already, algeria, tunisia and other countries are working to break the isolation of syria and invite

assad to the coming arab summit. so it will be different because he was kicked out in november 2011. so it could be a turning point here. what i find interesting is that a lot of speculation is from western commentators, is that because assad was propped up in the bad days by iran and now you have all these arab nations, what does this mean? the turks immediately after trump said he was pulling out, did not consult with his secretary of defense which is why he resigned. the kurds, who did the heavy lifting turning back isis, are suddenly now threatened by the turks. in the last 24 hours, they invited assad to send troops to northern syria. it's to protect them. and bari brought up israel, what you have is this complete mess. i don't think there is any clarity

because iran is strengthened all the way to the mediterranean by assad consolidating power. israel has had elections. an election in april. no one said they are waiting to replace neta nyahu, he will cobble together and coalition in the couple of years and it will be the same thing. but russia we haven't mentioned and russia has now replaced the united states as the main outside shaper of events and i do wonder what the game is between erdogan and putin, and trump. and what putin wants out of the situation because i think erdogan may be being played here a bit and they will protect the kurds and what happens next, i don't know. first, the kurds are the biggest victim of the americans

pulling out from syria. absolutely. again, they were stabbed in the back. the americans use them to fight isis and they did a fantastic job and kicked out isis from from its capital, raqqa, in syria, they said thank you very much, go and suck sort out your problems with erdogan. they know erdogan will be harsh on them. he threatened to bomb them. so they decided to go to the better choice which is to go to assad again, who may be much weaker than erdogan and also he is supported by the russians. the russians have the upper hand now in syria. i don't think there's any long—term strategy in trump's white house. i think bringing the troops home is always a popular move in america under any circumstances and this was an opportunist move because he was in trouble on other fronts. and it conveniently serves his friend putin. could we see, then, not

a better middle east, but a more stable middle east? i think we will. now syria is going back to the arab rank again, there will be a revision of certain policies which guided to this mess, now this is the end of the arab spring. but it is at the price of russia running the show. why not? america is abandoning... we had a lot of problems with america. we had wars. bari, i can remember doing this programme with you when we were both extremely critical, when 0bama decided his red lines can be crossed and so what? he wasn't going to do anything about it. that was considered to be absolutely immoral and one of the consequences was he was abandoning the middle east to russian influence. that is not healthy. it is healthy. it was americans there, the americans controlled this area

for the last 50 years. and what did we have in the middle east? war in iraq, libya and syria. listen to me just one minute. what president trump said, when we had saddam hussein, when we had gaddafi, we had a more stable middle east. that's not what he said at the time. he said it. he changes his line every five minutes. that's not what he said under 0bama at the time. i think given russia's extraordinary success in the muslim world, whether it's internally in chechnya and who could forget the number three in isis was abu al—chechnya or something like that. you know who i mean. i'm happy as an american citizen to hand the muslim world to russia and let them take the losses for a bit. thank you! on that happy note let's move on to the americas, michael. because we have notjust donald trump in office at the moment, we have the arrival in january of jair bolsonaro,

the new brazilian leader, a strongman from the right. and have a strongman from the left in mexico, andres manuel lopez 0brador. these are a big figures, it's getting a crowded neighbourhood? what will happen in 2019, i will put senor bolsonaro and senor lopez 0brador to one side and say that in 2011, i did this show looking ahead to 2012 and confidently predicted bashir al—assad would be gone. the same way as hosni mubarak and gaddafi would be gone and he's are still there. so i will now confidently predict that i don't think donald trump will be president at the end of 2019. i'm with you there, absolutely. this is the entente! the variety of reasons for saying that. when he goes, this whole thing that columnists and journalists who spend

no time in the countries that they actually write about, this whole thing about strongmen and autocrats, that will die with him. for a strongman, donald is actually really bad at it. erdogan it is good at it, putin is good at it, we will see if bolsonaro is good at it but trust me, donald trump is not good at it. this is one of the reasons i don't think he will survive. is it the mueller investigation, the russia connection? there are three things. we will put mueller last. there are enough red lights about the economy flashing. the uncertainty about how he works. he doesn't think beyond tomorrow. he doesn't think beyond the next tweet and he doesn't think when he tweets, as we can see when we read them. it's affecting the market's performance. in the month of november, this is an astonishing figure, i read itjust last week, not a single ounce of soybeans was sold from america to china. this cannot continue. finally, the most important thing is, donald trump gives no loyalty

and the party will give him no loyalty back. they have got from him what they want — they have have two supreme court justices, a locked—in conservative majority, they have a tax cut which makes the wealthy donors even wealthier. as the economy fizzles, america really does need allies. i do think they will turn on him. the departure of mattis and john kelly... possibly the head of the fed. and the mueller report, he has kept it close to his chest but what we know, the way the indictments are being rolled out, he has cast his net wide and he has a lot of evidence. i actually think the mueller report will become a sideshow. it won't be a democratic impeachment, that is too slow and he's too dangerous. i think the republican party will have to deal with this and remove him. all the grown—ups have left the room. i wish i was sure

that you were right. i really, really hope you're right. except then we get mike pence and he is no picnic either. he's sane. he is saner but backpedalling a minute... vice president and former governor of indiana. hardcore conservative money man, religious right, conservative, all of that. the same nominees. the same nominees in the supreme court. for 18 months. the democrats controlled the house. nancy pelosi is better at moving the process. it's not so much will trump be gone but what happens in 2020. look at 2019. what's left, a year and a half in which most is spent campaigning for the presidency? mike pence is a social conservative, he is not my cup of tea but the point is he would not do the things that trump has done. trump is the infant in the white house playing with very dangerous toys. absolutely and as i said,

i hope you are right but having seen so many things i expected to go differently, turn over the last two years, i think we in the age of disruption and there is no predicting anything. there is one thing that americans won't tolerate disruption of and that is the stock market. they are very sophisticated investors, they are very aware of how much their pension funds are linked to the stock market. we are talking about ordinary americans. the little people. not in politics or in the media. they have pensions. the point is, when bill clinton was going to his ordeal and the economy was booming at the time, everybody said no, he will stay in office because people aren't concerned about paula jones, they are concerned about the dowjones. that is the obverse of what's happening now, people are really concerned. why people aren't concerned about the collapse of the stock market, for example? it isn't collapsing.

it is — 1,000 points. let's not go back to that. i believe trump will face a huge problem, immediately, maybe next week, because the house of representatives will be dominated by the republicans... by the democrats. so the republicans are extremely worried that the same thing could happen actually in any coming election. i believe mueller will actually issue his statement. you've mentioned the democrats, bari, this should be, come the new year, the time when we start seeing the democratic white knight if there is such a thing, appearing on the horizon. is there a figure? this is a problem with the press and particularly with the washington press. 2019 promises to be very interesting and i think the idea that most of the articles in the last month coming from washington are about

2020 speculation, it's clickbait. they do that because they know it's gossip. it's notjust clickbait, it's because that's where a real change will come, if change will come. i honestly think if democrats have 15—20 people to sort through, they have no need to be looking for this. what's in front of them is the problem of donald trump. and that's what they need to focus on, not 2020 but this coming year? at a certain point... bari, let me just finish. at a certain point in time, this will not be a party issue. we keep waiting for the republicans to step up and put country above party. i do think it will happen sooner or later. who will be the white knight? i mean, it could be that, there's beto o'rourke, there's kamala harris, there are men, women, people of colour, latinos, there's a wide range. whatever happens in the endgame

of trump, that's when you will begin to see a national leader emerge for the democrats and the republicans. i'm not so worried about mike pence. this is a big thing but honestly... if not by impeachment, how do you think trump will go? when the subpoena hits his family's business. he will go "voluntarily". he will walk away. i want one place where we haven't paid much attention and we should think about in the coming year. italy. thank you. the financial crisis, the possible collapse? pulling the plug on the euro. they've already made their deal with brussels, you just didn't read that headline last week. i did, i didn't believe it. i think china and central asia, you can't keep a million people in re—education camps without it having a knock—on effect. china would be my call too. saudi arabia is a very important country, when 100 senators voted

that mohammad bin salman is responsible for the killing of jamal khashoggi, it means there will be a lot of changes there. thank you all very much. that's dateline london for this week, and this year, and since the new year is a case of out with the old, in with the new, we'll be back at the same time next weekend with a different panel, though you'll have to wait a couple of weeks i'm afraid for a different presenter! from all of us on the programme, have a happy new year. hello. 2018 finished on a rather cloudy, but relatively mild note. however, now we are into 2019, the weather has brightened up for a number of us. and the reason, well, we've got this weak cold front that has been pushing southward today.

cooler air following, yes, but there have been more breaks in the cloud. so, more in the way of sunshine. there is that weak cold front, still bringing an odd spit of rain over the next few hours. sunshine for northern england, southern and western scotland, and we have seen showers across the north—east. those showers will continue overnight as well. one or two showers possible down the north sea coast. where the cloud comes inland, it will probably just about stay frost free. however, further west, with lighter wind and clear skies, there will be a widespread frost around, even in the towns and cities. in the countryside, i reckon scotland could get down to about —6, maybe some —5s in wales and northern ireland to watch out for. so, a cold start, a frosty start to wednesday. more of that sunshine to go around, so a decent kind of day apart from the chill. a bit more in a way of cloud around some of these north sea coasts. that cloud could bring a few isolated light showers, perhaps one or two clipping into lincolnshire. one or two in norfolk. even here, it should stay largely fine and dry, with sunny spells. temperatures down on those of today.

three to seven celsius, it will feel a little on the chilly side. high pressure stays across the uk, then, over the next few days, but at the same time a plunge of cold arctic air spreads in across eastern europe, with some snow, even to lower levels in parts of greece, would you believe it. yes, it does look like it will be cold and snowy there. something to watch out for over the next few days. meanwhile, high—pressure stays with us. that keeps our weather fine and dry for most areas. a few showers continuing to work down the southern north sea, perhaps running into parts of kent as we go to thursday. we will probably start to see a little bit more in the way of cloud across western scotland, along with a greater risk of some mist and fog patches here. for friday, it's a case of spot the difference. there are a few subtle differences here and there, the dry weather for most of us, still some sunshine, still cold and frosty start the day. probably a few more fog patches, again, for western scotland. it is here where we are starting to see some milder air pushing in. highs of 9 degrees in stornoway. still quite cold further south for england and wales, with temperatures continuing to struggle somewhat.

however, as we head into the weekend and the early part of next week, there is a tendency for it to turn a little bit cloudy, with temperatures getting back closer to normal. this is bbc news. the headlines at four o'clock. a terror investigation is launched after three people including a police officer are stabbed at manchester's victoria station. my thoughts are very much with the couple who are still being treated in hospitalfor their very serious injuries. and of course with the brave british transport police officer that was stabbed during the attack. signals from the nasa space probe new horizons confirm it has successfully flown past icy mass ultima thule, the most distant object every explored in the solar system. the archbishop of canterbury calls for an end to the "divisions of recent years" in his new year sermon. in russia, an 11—month—old baby is pulled from the rubble of a block of flats hit by an explosion — eight bodies