hello this is bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines: thejustice secretary has said the government's main priority has to be the safety of the public — when considering the case of shamima begum. a 27—year—old man has appeared in court charged with the murders of three elderly men in exeter. thousands of criminals in england and wales will be tagged with gps trackers to allow authorities to trace them 2a hours a day. the funeral of footballer emiliano sala, who died in a plane crash in the english channel last month, as he headed for his new club cardiff city, is taking place in his native argentina. nigeria has delayed its presidential and parliamentary elections for a week — the decision came just five hours before the polls were due to open. now on bbc news its dateline london with carrie gracie. hello, and welcome

to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week: what is the emergency? the us president says it's an invasion of drugs and crime on the southern border. his critics say it's a constitutional crisis of his own making. in fact some say he is the emergency. and six weeks to go till march 29th. we take a close look atjeremy corbyn's moves on the brexit board. my guests today, bronwen maddox, director of the institute for government, owen jones, columnist for the guardian newspaper, henry chu, international editor of variety, and thomas kielinger, author and long—time correspondent of die welt. welcome to you all. thanks forjoining us.

do you want the good news or the bad news? on the one hand, the united states avoided another government shutdown this weekend as the president signed a spending bill. on the other, he declared a national emergency which democrats condemn as an unconstitutional abuse of power and vow to overturn. henry, let's start with you. did you fall off your chair when you heard there was going to be an emergency? the barfor a falling of one's chair during this presidency is pretty high. this did not clear it for me. from the beginning of this presidency, donald trump has shown scant regard for the constitution he was sworn to uphold, whether it is the ban on muslims entering the country or his own financial benefit from the presidency. the fact he is moving us into territory that none of us thought we could go into i do not find that surprising. if this was a national emergency, you could have declared it a couple of months ago, before he subjected the us to the longest government shut down in history and received nothing

out of that. it is a matter of seeing what the next step is and how congress being dominated by democrats in the house will try to stop this. you're an american citizen as well as a british one. you have studied these issues. taking up henry's point, do you think the democrats and some of their republican friends will stop this? they will try to end it will probably take it to the supreme court. we can see court cases beginning. in saying this is a constitutional issue, they are saying the president is trying to get round the powers of congress over the budget and congress has been given that under the us constitution, to get the final say on the budget. the president can challenge that. presidents have always found it annoying and try to get round it, but particularly on foreign policy. donald trump is trying to say, congress does not have the right, even on domestic policy and he is trying to get round legislation put in a 1976, the national emergencies act, to stop presidents trying to get round the side,

spelling out the circumstances in which they can declare an emergency. democrats are saying, he has bust that open and is redefining emergency, and commanding much greater sums of money than that allows for. so the legal argument will be about separation of powers in the constitution, rather than about the evidentiary basis of whether this is an emergency or not? probably both because there will be all kinds of legal cases about this. it is unclear how it will be argued in court. it depends on the court they get, whichjudges they will appear before. it probably will be clear that the justice department, acting on the orders of donald trump, they will say, it is not for you, it is for the court to decide whether it is an emergency or not, whether we have the constitutional right to do this declaration. he torpedoed that legal basis by himself when questioned by a reporter, he said, i did not need to do this, but i wanted to do it faster. there is unease among republicans

because of the presecent. one said if a left—wing american president came to power and try to nationalise financial institutions, we can all dream. it is important to talk about the normalisation issue. it is so important, the evidential basis for the national emergency, it is a contrived national emergency. that is important. the claims he made of massively increased crossings across the mexican border are not true, they are lower than ten years ago. prison is full of undocumented migrants, not true, it is a very small proportion. criminal acts committed by undocumented migrants, the evidence shows that american citizens are twice as likely to commit crimes than undocumented migrants. it is fair to say that there are lots of illegal aliens in american prisons. undocumented migrants is a subset of that. it is a very small proportion. overwhelmingly, it is american citizens. one example he used

was el paso, where a border construction was put in place. he said there are very low levels of migrants crossing or crime. it is important to talk about this, because what he is trying to do, and we will speak about this, and it may well be successful, he is trying to fire up his own base. polling shows that over 80% of republican supporters want a wall. it has gone down to 6% among democrats supporters. he is firing up the base. the response of the democrats will determine whether he is successful. you were formerly a correspondent in washington, dc. what do you make of the political fight in congress between the separation of powers and the legal fight? the way that donald trump has chosen is likely to deepen the divide of the country, his party and other parties, so i wonder what games he will reap from this procedure. you said at the beginning he will avoid another

shutdown of the government, but i'm thinking of the long term, whether this is not the beginning of the shutdown of the trump presidency. it has become so contentious. the opinion poll that owen mentioned, about the majority of people being in favour of him, republicans, rather, it has to do with the further away that you are from the area where these proposals exist, along the border, the more ideological you become about his position, and whether you support him. i am not sure i can trust this result. i think the chances of donald trump winning a second term are pretty high. the facts that owen has mentioned are correct but we know this is not about facts from the campaign and the presidency. it is about a totemic response, the wall and the response that generates amongst the base and the commentators. powerful symbols. correct. these are the ones to whom he physically turns, as we saw in the news conference,

waiting for their adulation to fire up the supporters who have elected him. that is why i would argue there has been a weak response by the democratic leadership. you are stuck in 90 triangulation on the issue. what do you mean by that? they are arguing that there needs to be massively increased border security, talking about technological solutions like drones. there are massive problems with what they're proposing, civil liberties for example. they are trying to talk to his base at the same time? they are conceding there is an issue but they are coming up with a fudged response rather than saying this is a manufactured crisis. the likes of the newly elected new york congresswoman, she is leading an insurgency against the democratic establishment, on this kind of weak approach, that is to say, this whole crisis is contrived, it is all based on lies, and it should be argued against on that position, rather than say, we do not agree

with the wall but we need to concede that issue. the reason this is important is, he is firing up the pace, we know donald trump does not need to win a majority of elections to win a presidential election, and if the democrats fill in the next presidential election to fire up their support, or fire up enough people to come out and support them, what happened in 2016, the story was democratic turnout was down, they did not mobilise enough voters to come out and vote, then donald trump will be president all over again. henry, we have said already, this is becoming the big symbol, the wall in the emergency, but is it going to work for him, or will it be enough to fire up the democratic base that owen is talking about? we see that he feels it works for him because he has talked about the fact that border security is a great issue for him to run on in 2020.

he felt it worked for him in 2016. why not do a rerun in 2020? i do not know that the wall itself would be as totemic an issue for democrats to come out in this way, even though the majority of americans in total are against the wall. he knows that if he can pick off the right voters in the right places, it will work. is this constitutional issue one that can fire up the democratic base? it can but it is pretty hard to get people really passionate about constitutional issues. it has a resonance in the us, but it does not over here. it is part of the talent of donald trump, to deflect interest from things that people might otherwise be talking about, like the massive stock market wobble and the slowing down of the american economy. many americans are directly aware of the retirement accounts invested in the stock market, in a way that we do not get in the uk. that could have hurt him, but you have the sudden, i am going to deliver what i promised. i think that the democratic leadership, nancy pelosi for example, was smart in pointing

out that if you play this game for you to declare a national emergency, what happens when there is president who says it is about climate change? on the same day he declared the emergency we had another big shooting in the us where five people died in illinois. in the last 20 years, the number of people who have been apprehended sneaking across the border has gone down by 75%. in the last 20 years, we have had the most people who have died in gun violence ever, so what is to stop a democratic president declaring that a national emergency? if i was a gun owner, i would be worried about letting him have this kind of power. lots of republicans in congress are precisely worried about that. that still leaves a gap where somebody on the democratic side, if they are going to defeat him in 2020, it raises the question whether he is commanding the agenda? it does not look like there is a contender who might destroy his base and stopping winning a second election but we do not know down the line,

we have another 1.5 years to go. we do not know how he is faring economically, and whether there is a resurgence in america about wanting a different kind of president rather than one who appears more and more authoritarian. is that in the national interest? i am banking on this development that there is going to be the emergence of an opinion in america which has had enough of the allegation of powers that the president is practising, and wants a more amenable person. some people look back and think that ronald reagan was a compromise. some people think he was an ideologue but he was a compromiser. i am banking that someone will return to the america that we used to know, which was more compromise oriented, and would not go into this terribly authoritarian way. i would not bank on that.

i think donald trump speaks for something. he did not come out of nowhere. he represents the unease of a lot of people. there are uneducated sections of public opinion who follow slogans. that is too patronising. people follow slogans too easily. the worry is lots of americans think this is what the democrats think about them, they think they are ill educated, stupid, bigoted, and that plays into the hands of donald trump. we have to learn from the lessons of 2016, which is that you need a candidate that can infuse the electorate. appeal. the strategy of barack obama in 2008 was to expand the electorate. it was not simply to split the difference with the republicans and try and win over some republican voters like that. it was to try and get more young people and more african americans to vote. if they go back to 2016 where they fielded an establishment candidate who came up with split the difference policies, straight down the middle centrist politics, the risk is the donald trump

will fire up his base and dominate the news cycle like you did in the last election, when the democrats were forced to respond each time to the latest outrageous things he had said, which allowed him to frame the election, depress their own turnout and they will lose. it will condemn america to unending years of division and an inability to come together. we have the same in britain with brexit. we are now going to come to that, because having delivered some lessons on party politics on the other side of the atlantic, we will come to our own country. time is running short for the alternative arrangements that might convince doubting conservative mps to back their leader's brexit deal. this week the labour leader heads to brussels for eu talks. canjeremy corbyn help break the deadlock or will his own side fracture while he's away? owen, you start. the big dilemma for labour, i call

it the hackney and hull problem. they are both labour heartlands. hull voted 70% for leave. the reality facing labour is most of its voters are members who voted remained but it cannot win another election unless it wins over more leave voters. there are lots of ironies. for ages, the labour left was accused of wanting protest and principle of apparel. —— principle — — principle overpower. now they are dead set on winning a general election. i was going to say to you, some of them are coming out of the last few days and saying, this is not about party unity, electoral politics, it is about national interest. the root of the crisis that has enveloped britain is conservative rule and the only way of addressing the injustices and division in the country that led to brexit is to have a set of policies that will address it and you can only do that with the labour government. the truth is, there are so many myths in the media about the reality, for example, even a parliamentary arithmetic. if labour backed a second

referendum, what would happen is various members of the shadow cabinet would resign, lots of front bench ministers would resign because they represent leave seats and they made a promise at the last general election to their constituents that they would not block a reverse brexit. these are not lefties, these people did not vote forjeremy corbyn in either leadership election. if there was a free vote of labour mps, most would not vote for a second referendum. if they were ordered to do so, about a quarter would refuse, which would mean they would have mass resignations, they would have a big public row over it, they would alienate the leave voters they need to win and there still would not be a second referendum. labour put an amendment a couple of weeks ago with the option of a second referendum and what happened? parliament voted it down. you're saying thatjeremy corbyn looks ahead pragmatically and says, i need to hide under my duvet for as long as possible because that will keep enough people behind me?

they're strategies to find a way of how can the deeply divided country be united. that is not a strategy, they are trying to get elected. it is completely different. it seems that your answer to the question is, can labour break the deadlock? the answer is no. there may well be a parliamentary majority for something like a softer brexit, including some elements that labour are suggesting but labour cannot get there, or back that kind of thing or do a deal with the conservatives because it is caught on this dilemma. it can't offend the leaf people entities has it needed that does not wa nt entities has it needed that does not want to come out for remain. —— cannot offend the leaf people and it has a readout that does not want to come out for remain. meanwhile it is suffering. labourmps want remain, a lot of labour younger voters are dismayed byjeremy corbyn's support for leave.

so you are saying... jeremy corbyn would be happy to see brexit happen on march the 29th as long as the tories owned it? yes. there is not a but about it. in a parliamentary democracy the point is to try to get elected. yes, but it would be great if you had a coherent slate of policies behind that election. labour have things i would criticise them on, for example they are not making the case for immigration. we are not getting into wider policy. the arguments they are making... they need to make the case for immigration. that is at the heart of the debate. it is important they make it more passionately. you do not need to explain it to me. i don't think it's too late for that. they need to explain it to me and the country, why their policies coherent. remain at last the referendum but it was a narrow result,

so you have to find a compromised brexit that can try to really unite the country. for example, a permanent customs union and regulatory alignment as much as possible with the single market. they may well end up in a situation that is basically norway plus, a de facto customs union... you may not like the position... they might not like the position because they would have to accept all kinds of constraints, and state aid and probably on workers. they have deliberately drawn their own red lines. it is impossible to meet any kind of tory government halfway. really, then, it is no longer about the national interest and coming up with a plan that can command some kind of bipartisan support, it is reallyjust about having some kind of clear distinction that keeps them from having any fingerprints on what happens after march 29. take a permanent customs union, there is actually a majority of mps who would back it but theresa may can't do that because she would split her own party. so what other people are saying

to you is thatjeremy corbyn can talk about that beautiful future, as he sees it, knowing full well that it is not going to happen? and also there is the question of whether jeremy corbyn would actually sign up to a deal led by a tory government to get it over the line. if you get to a position where you accept no second referendum because there is not the parliamentary numbers for it and it would be divisive, if you accept there is not a parliamentary majority for theresa may's brexit and it does not unify the country, then the only position you end up in is to soften that deal by getting concessions when you get a majority vote. i would like to hear from thomas. give us a sense of where people in brussels and elsewhere in europe might sit on this. jeremy corbyn is going to brussels. they are listening to this debate. with an ending bewilderment and so

ami with an ending bewilderment and so am i personally looking in from the outside. this country needs some kind of unification. it is not going to get one about brexit. to me, that proves brexit is surplus to requirements. you have no consensus on what you want in brussels as a future partner so you should have left things as they were in the first place. what ever anybody thinks about that, there is no middle of the water now. anything is possible, nothing is likely. that means that people who will eventually be asked to have a second vote, because parliamentarians and government have proved themselves unable to get to an end point. you through the issue onto the lap of the people three years ago. it is not my preferred option but there will be a demand for a second referendum to settle brexit because politicians cannot do that. that shows the capitulation of representative government.

unless there is a dramatic shift within parliament to get what the labour leadership want. but quickly, on the issue of changing britain's negotiating, donald tusk, the president of the european council, when labour sent a letter to may offering their own red lines, shift to a permanent customs union, lining up the single market, donald tusk's response was positive and he urged theresa may to sit down and come up with an agreement with labour. there is receptive ears within the eu. the problem britain has at the moment is that according to the red line is that the government has set out, that is the only deal that we can get with the eu. if we shift those red lines... do you think there is any likelihood that theresa may this weekend, after seeing another defeat last week in the house, that she might

be sitting down this weekend and thinking, do you know what, maybe this is the way to go? i think at the moment, no. her tactics may be still to try to court the right of her party rather than reaching across the aisle to those supporting a customs union, but we have a few weeks to go. this is clearly going to the brink. i think that britain will end up asking for a delay, whether or not we get one. and i agree that a second referendum doesn't feel likely at this point because of a lack of support in parliament. i think a general election is more likely, because this is how parliament has traditionally put it back to the people, even if it solves nothing. a referendum could be part of a ma nifesto a referendum could be part of a manifesto not part of general election? it could be. just before we get to the general election, second referendum question, henry, we are getting very close to march the 29th. what is going to happen at this point? you are in the delay camp? in terms of what i

think will happen. partly it is having covered the eu myself over the many years of the debt crisis and seeing how it has always come to some kind of last—minute compromise, something to keep something terrible from happening, in this case, a no deal crashed out of brexit. this is how they deal with states within the eu, at this point, britain is still a member of the eu and it would be extremely detrimental to the eu for there to be a no deal on the british side and for itjust to have a clear divorce that way. so i actually do think that a delay is likely but i am not sure it will solve anything. and your crystal ball on what goes on inside european heads, this problem of european elections coming up and whether that puts a whole extra bunch of brexiteers into the heart of european politics in the uk... which of course they don't want, but they also find that

preferable to the idea that britain just crashes out entirely, which leaves the eu holding a bag they don't want to be holding. an extension does not solve the issue. there is this belief that if you extend the deadline you are likely to see an outcome. yes, and if you are theresa may, that is why she's saying she has to hold feet to the fire and before march the 29th they will bend. brussels often does in the last moment, they stop the clock. if they have to reach a certain deadline by a certain day, something will give. i cannot see that this will happen on the irish issue. they are determined not to change the wording as it is. so while i believe that something will give, i cannot predict where it will be. on the irish border, there will be some language, whether it is enough to give an agreement in parliament. they will harden up the language

about it not being forever. the parallel with the euro crisis is interesting because there you had angela merkel and the central bank doing whatever it would take to stop the collapse. there is this sense of needing to keep solidarity. so i don't know whether they will really try to avoid it at the last minute. the eu can't throw ireland under a bus. even if there is... they completely concede on the backstop, which will never happen, the erg, the tory hard brexiteers, they have a shopping list, and they will say, now we are not happy with the divorce payment. everybody else has told me their view on probable delay. thomas, delay? likely but very unsatisfactory. delay and possibly

a general election. theresa may may be desperate. if her deal is clearly unacceptable to parliament and she cannot soften it because it will split her own party... she does not want to go down in history as the person who split the conservative party. we will have to leave it there. thank you. we are back next week, same place, same time. hello there. it is staying mild throughout this weekend. the winds are still coming in from the south. they will strengthen overnight.

in from the south. we will see the cloud thickening in western scotland and northern ireland to bring rain and drizzle at times. further east, a lot of that low cloud will get pushed northwards on the strengthening winds and out into the north sea. skies tending to clear. it should not get too cold because of the breeze. lows of four or five degrees. to the west we have ragged rain moving in. further east, sunshine. it will cloud over in the afternoon. as the rain clears the west, sunshine following in the afternoon. showers for northern ireland and western scotland. windier than today. still mild. 12—14 degrees. monday sees a lot of cloud for the south east and east anglia. a little drizzle for a while. elsewhere, brighter skies and sunshine. increasing blustery showers blown into scotland, north ireland and the northwest of england, some of them heavy. mild but not quite as mild. this is bbc news — i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at five. as the family of shameema baygum ask

the government to help bring her home — thejustice secretary says the main priority has to be the safety of the public. a 27—year—old man appears in court, charged with the murders of 3 elderly men in exeter. thousands of criminals are to be monitored 2a hours a day — using gps tracking technology. the funeral of footballer, emiliano sala, who was killed when his plane crashed into the channel, is taking place in argentina. good afternoon.