this is bbc news. the headlines: us vice president mike pence says the united states will stay in the middle east to help hunt down the remnants of the so—called islamic state. the battle for the last pocket of is territory is being held up because civilians remain trapped there. us military aircraft have begun delivering humanitarian aid for venezuela to the colombian border. president maduro has warned that aid could be a us pretext for a military intervention. opposition leaderjuan guaido called for demonstrations to persuade the military to allow the aid in. eight illegal gold miners have been pulled alive from flooded mines in zimbabwe, but officials fear dozens more are still trapped underground. more than 20 bodies have been recovered since the incident happened on tuesday night. the government has declared it a national disaster. it's 2:31am. you're up to date with the headlines. but now on bbc news, dateline london.

hello and welcome to dateline london. —— 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's 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, owenjones, 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. now, do you want the good news or the bad news first? on the one hand, the united states avoided another government shutdown this weekend as the president signed a spending bill. on the other hand, he declared a national emergency, which democrats are condemning as an unconstitutional abuse of power, and which they 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? i think the barforfalling off one's chair during this presidency now is pretty high. this didn't really 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 really do not find that surprising.

if this was a national emergency, he could have declared it a couple of months ago, before he subjected the us to the longest government shutdown 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. bronwen, you are an american citizen as well as a british one, as i understand it. you've studied these issues. taking up henry's point, do you think the democrats and some of the republican france will stop this? —— of the republicans will stop this? they will try to end it and 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 doesn't have the right, even on domestic policy, and he is trying to get round legislation put in in 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 busted that open and is redefining emergency, and commanding much greater sums of money than... so the legal argument will be about separation of powers in the constitution, rather than about the evidentiary basis of whether this is actually an emergency or not? probably both, because there are going to be all kinds of legal cases about this. i think it's a little bit unclear yet 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's not for you, it is for the court to decide whether it's an emergency or not, whether we have the constitutional right to do this declaration. he repeated the legal basis by himself when questioned

by a reporter, he said, i didn't need to do this, but i wanted to do it faster. there is also unease among republicans because of the precedent. one said if a left—wing american president came to power and tried to nationalise financial institutions, we can alldream. 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. it's important for people to say tht. the claims he made of massively increased crossings across the mexican border, it's not true, they're much lower than ten years ago. prison is full of undocumented migrants, not true, it's a small proportion. criminal acts committed by undocumented migrants, the evidence shows that american citizens are twice as likely to commit crimes than undocumented migrants. although it is fair to say there's quite a lots of illegal aliens in american prisons. undocumented migrants

is a subset of that. it's a small proportion. overwhelmingly, it's american citizens. one example he uses is el paso, where a border construction was put in place. he said well, look, there are very low levels of migrants crossing and crime. that's always had low levels of 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's trying to fire up his own base. polling shows that over 80% of republican supporters now want a wall. it's gone down to 6% among democrats supporters. the response of the democrats will determine whether he is successful. you were formerly a correspondent in washington, dc. i mean, 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, of his party and other parties, and so i wonder what gain he will reap

from this procedure. you said at the beginning he'll 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. because it's become so contentious. the opinion poll that owen just mentioned, but 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 you support him on this. so i'm not sure i can trust this result. i alos think the chances of donald trump winning a second term are pretty high. —— also. the fact 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 that news conference, waiting for their adulation to fire up the supporters who have elected him. that's why i would argue there has been a very, very weak response by the democratic leadership certainly. you are stuck in a kind of 90s 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 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, alexandria ocasio—cortez, who is leading an insurgency against the democratic establishment on this kind of weak approach, that is to say, this whole

crisis is contrived, it's 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 do 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 to fire up enough people to come out and support them, what happened in 2016, the story there was that democratic turnout was down, they didn't mobilise enough voters to come out and vote, then donald trump will become president of the united states all over again. henry, we've said already, this is becoming a big symbol, the wall and the emergency, but is it not 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 feels it worked for him in 2016, so so 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 against 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. it can but it is pretty hard to get people really passionate about constitutional issues. it has a resonance in the us that it doesn't 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 don't get

in the uk. that could have hurt him, but you have the sudden, no, i'm going to deliver what i promised. i think that the democratic leadership, nancy pelosi for example, was very smart in pointing out that if you play this game for you to declare a national emergency, what happens when there is a 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 25 years, the number of people who have been apprehended sneaking across the border has gone down by 75%. in the last 12 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? so if i was a gun owner and a trump voted, i think i would be a little bit 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 does raises a question of whether he is commanding the agenda. it doesn't look like at the moment

there is a contender destroy his base and stop him winning a second election, but we do not know that 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. reagan was far more amenable, although some people look back and think that ronald reagan was terrible, but he was a compromiser. i am banking on the hop, that someone will return to the america that we used to know,

which was more compromise oriented, and won't go into this terribly authoritarian way. i wouldn't bank on that. i think donald trump speaks for something. he didn't come out of nowhere. he represents the unease of a lot of people. there are uneducated sections of public opinion who follow slogans. i think that's too patronising. people follow slogans too easily. there are lots of americans who think this is what the democrats think about them, they think they are well 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 come out and say we will 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 he did in the last election, when the democrats were forced to respond each time to the latest outrageous things he'd said, which allowed him to frame the election, in which case 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 are now going to come to our own continent and 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. 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 us off. the big dilemma for labour,

i call it the hackney and hull problem. they are both labour heartlands. hull voted 70% for lee. the reality facing labour is most of its voters and members voted remain, 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 appeal. 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. for example, 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, but 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 thejeremy 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? their strategy is to find a way of how can a deeply divided

country be united. which is, you accept the referendum... that is not their strategy, they are trying to get elected, which is completely different to that. it seems that your answer to the question is, can labour break the deadlock? the answer is no. for exactly the reasons you are laying out. 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 cannot offend be leave people, and it has a leader who doesn't actually want to come out for remain. meanwhile it is suffering. lots of labour mps 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. that is the nature of the game, really. yes, but it would be great if you had a coherent policies behind that election. labour have things i would criticise them on, for example they are not making the case for immigration. the scapegoating of migrants. we are not getting into wider policy. which i am going to explain now. the arguments they are making... they need to make the case for immigration. that is at the heart of the debate. it is important for them to make the case more patiently. i don't think it's too late for that. it is never too late to make the case for migration. they need to explain it to me and the country, why their policies coherent. remain lost 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... but to understand corbyn's strategy... you may not like the position... they might not like the position because they would have to accept all kinds of constraints on state aid and probably on workers. they have deliberately drawn their own red lines. ina way in a way that it is impossible to meet any kind of tory government halfway, which they don't really wa nt to halfway, which they don't really want to do anyway. 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 that, but the issue is 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 therefore he doesn't have to do get the backing for it. 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 and bitter, if you accept there is not a parliamentary majority for theresa may's brexit and it does not unify the country, except against it, 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. because jeremy corbyn is going to brussels. they are listening to this debate. with unending the world and. and so ami with unending the world and. and so am i personally. —— unending

bewilderment. 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 settled opinion in britain with what you want to do with europe as a future partner. you should have left everything as it was in the first base. but we haven't got that. whatever anybody thinks about that, we're in the 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. brexit is not my preferred option but there will be a demand for a second referendum to settle brexit because politicians cannot do that. and it is a huge demonstration of a

capitulation of representative government, that this country has not been able to produce a unified position. unless there is a dramatic shift within parliament, forget 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. 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 support 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 tend to think a general election is more likely, because this is how britain has traditionally put it back to the people, even if it solves nothing. evenif even if the manifestoes make no coherent sense. but it could be part ofa coherent sense. but it could be part of a manifesto, could be part of the general election. it could be, but it is difficult to see the preceding it. 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? not in terms of what i think will happen. what my crystal ball is service. —— says.

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 crash—out brexit. owen, you've said 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, i am not sure it will solve anything. iam not i am not sure having more time brings us to any better position. 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 if the uk stays in. which of course they don't want. they will still find that preferable

to the idea of the uk crashing out entirely, which leaves the eu holding a bag don't want to be holding. 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. they will bend, as brussels often doesin they will bend, as brussels often does in the last moment, they can even stop the clock in order to meet a certain deadline on a certain day. something will give. that is their opinion. but i cannot see that this will happen on the irish issue. 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. there is language about whether it will not be for ever... 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. it is very unlikely they will offer anything concrete on the backstop. this is often missing in this discussion, i think. this is often missing in this discussion, ithink. even if this is often missing in this discussion, i think. even if they com pletely discussion, i think. even if 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 of £39 billion. that isa divorce payment of £39 billion. that is a suspicion in some quarters. we have a few moments left. i have heard the views on the side of the table about a probable delay. thomas, delay? likely but very unsatisfactory. but they will be won.

—— there will be one. 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. after hitting a high of 17 degrees on friday, saturday could only manage 111. of course, it didn't help, it certainly felt cooler if your skies looked like this. but there's still some springlike sunshine to be found here and there. and in fact, parts of eastern england could be as high as 16

degrees during sunday, because we're all going to see a bit of sunday sunshine, either side though of an area of cloud, with the chance of rain spreading east across the uk. got low pressure to the west of us, you see the swirl in the satellite picture here. so it's this cloud which is going to move on through, but it is a weakening system, and some of us could welljust stay dry throughout. so this is how we're starting the day, nowhere particularly cold. and actually, for many of us, it will be a sunny start, but that's away from this area of cloud and some rain to the west. notice how narrow it is, though, as it moves into south—west england, into wales, knocking on the door of north—west england. most of its rain is now done from northern ireland at this stage, it's 9:00am in the morning. there's still some heavier bursts affecting parts of western scotland. there is a stiff, southerly wind out of this, as well. you're watching bbc news. i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: the battle to claim the last pocket of territory from the so—called islamic state group has stalled,

because thousands of civilians remain trapped inside the area. as we enter this new phase, the united states will continue to work with all our allies to hunt down the remnants of isis wherever and whenever they rear their ugly head. us military planes carrying humanitarian aid for venezuela begin arriving at the border. president maduro calls it a cover for a us invasion.