the sunshine. this evening and tonight the showers will fade, looking predominantly dry by the end of the night but with some areas of cloud, mist and of the night but with some areas of cloud, mistand murk of the night but with some areas of cloud, mist and murk as we have seen over the last few nights it will be pretty mild, minimum temperatures between seven and 11 degrees. we go on into monday, cloud, mist and fog in places to start off and once again we see some spells of sunshine, once again a scattering of heavy showers, and in the best of the sunshine some warmth to be had, highs of 20 degrees. hello this is bbc news with ben brown. the headlines: theresa may promises mps a "bold" new offer on brexit, to try to get her deal through parliament before she leaves office. the new national rail summer timetable comes into effect today — train companies say they've learned lessons from weeks of chaos on the network last summer. a bbc investigation finds a fall in the number of prosecutions for revenge porn — even though there are

more reported incidents. # all i know # loving you is a losing game...# triumph for the netherlands in this year's eurovision song contest — but despair for the uk, which finished last. now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week... "we're having a little squabble with china, but we always win," so says president trump. is the squabble little, and which side will win? economic sanctions and military firepower. it's all sticks, no carrots in us policy on iran now.

and delivering brexit. if not theresa may and her withdrawal deal, then who and how? my guests today are bari abdel atwan, arab affairs analyst, writer and broadcaster jeffrey kofman, isabel hilton of the news website china dialogue and political commentator steve richards. welcome to you all. "we have all the advantage," said a confident president trump last week. our economy is fantastic — their‘s is not so good. paper tiger, deluded colonialist, retort chinese state media. who is misjudging who here? i think that is a question first for isabel. i think there was a misjudgment towards the closing week of the negotiations in which both sides were talking confidently with the vice premier liu he going back to washington, and suddenly it went very pear—shaped at the weekend. it seems to have been a push from xijinping, who may have fatally been reading the art of the deal and concluded

that if you make your maximum demand at the last minute, you get there, and it didn't work. the sticking point i think was the american demand that some of these concessions, which i think china was fairly willing to make on intellectual property and... you know the list. ..should be enshrined in chinese law, which is a slightly bizarre concession since the party's above the law anyway. but it would've meant this very public process of going to the national people's congress would have looked like a climb—down for xi jingping, who is a highly nationalist leader, who promises to make his country great again, to be seen to allow the united states to dictate chinese law, i think he thought politically was not a great look. remember it came just after his belt and road summit, the wheels have been wobbling a bit on belt and road. you know, he is not on entirely confident ground and brava figura is a big part of his domestic position, and this i don't think he could've taken.

looking at the view from washington, i mean, that history haiku from donald trump, "a little squabble, we always win" — is that bravado on his part, or is that resolve and resilience? this is one issue where actually you have a fair amount unanimity across the united states, the republicans and democrats alike think it is time to rein in china, to call china on it, particularly on the issue of technology theft. and so it is not one of those republican—democratic polarisations. in fact, a while ago it was nancy pelosi who said trump was not going far enough. with the rhetoric of trump, it is interesting, it is kind of refreshing because the old—style diplomacy hasn't accomplished any of that, so you think maybe this new guy with all of his bluster can do it. but the problem with his bluster is he goes for these knee jerk responses of tariffs.

yes, putting a big tariff on these imports will hurt china, but who will pay? it is the american consumer. he does not really take the time — surprise, surprise — to think through the logic and consequence of his actions but it is true, i agree, i think the chinese misjudged at the last minute, thought they could push this through, and trump is not having it. and when we look at the next move on the board of the trump, he is talking about putting another set of tariffs on the rest of us imports from china, another $300 billion worth. should the chinese take him seriously, or is the voice of the american consumer going to say no at that point? the chinese economy is not strong right now, it is struggling, so exports to china are really important. i think trump has some strong cards in his hand, but the consequence on american consumers cannot be negated, nor can the huge us investment in china. and so this isn't...

putting up tariffs ultimately leads to this reciprocity that is destructive. i think an interesting thing is we saw these steel tariffs against mexico and canada are being pulled down and this has been a real irritant between america's closest allies, and this week the us—mexico—canada free trade agreement now looks like it will pass, partly because i think trump knows he needs to focus on china. the irony is he has ended up with what nafta was and a lot of this bluster takes us where we already were. i think that almost a more important part of last week was the declaration that supplying huawei was national security. and you remember the next biggest chinese technology company

was caught sanctions busting by congress and they put in a similar kind of sanction on them which was only lifted after xijinping called donald trump because the company had gone bust. you have got a giant technology company which looks like it will take over the world but the vulnerabilities is it cannot work without american components. that is a real declaration of war, and the danger is that if you do back to a trade deal between the us and china, which is not looking too promising, but could happen, that is a short truth in what is very explicitly going to be a long war. we are in a war which is being expressed through commerce but it is a war for the future and it will not stop. would you bring huawei into the us and western europe? no, i think it is a risk, but i think that is different. the security issue is

whether you destroy the company. i want to bring steve and bari in now. steve, on the issue of the raises, the long—running commercial war we will see between these two superpowers, at least on some battlefronts. the uk has become a problem battlefront in a way on the huawei question. it will get worse now that we have had the national emergency with trump keeping out what it sees as adversaries on tech. the three topics we are discussing in this programme as a substratum reflects the total confusion at the moment about britain's place in the world and this is a classic example, what to do with china. cameron and osborne, when they were in charge, wooed china assiduously, went out there, and then theresa may said it was not a grown—up way of doing it, we will review the

whole relationship. now she is the one who wants this deal with... give me the correct pronunciation. huawei. huawei, against her ex defence secretary gavin williamson and others, who was then photographed with george osborne, even though he was the pro—china initiator. tere is total confusion in the british government. are you saying they don't understand the consequences of their actions on china moves? they do, but they face a dilemma. my understanding is the reason theresa may was keen on that deal is it was a good deal and britain at the moment is searching around for good deals outside of the european union because of brexit. but it is also obsessed with a deal with the united states, a trade deal. and a lot of the conservative candidates, i think will be asked about this and will come down on the side of the united states for the same security reasons. but they are confused, they will want to do deals with china big time because britain's economic position is so confused,

what is its relationship with europe be? what about the potential for china? but we can't alienate the usa and so there will be a lot of this bewildered confusion within a british government, notjust between different parties. and bari, i wanted to pick up on something that isabel said about the national pride issue, the sovereignty issue. some analysts say what the americans are asking of china is to rewrite its operating system and put that in law for the economy. obviously as a country, china, which says it has had two centuries of humiliation at the hands of foreigners, there are delicate issues around being seen to act at the behest of foreigners. the problem is, we in the east, we have the national pride, and we don't want people, especially from the west, to interfere in our affairs, so this is the major problem.

the other problem, is, isabel said maybe the chinese misjudged the situation. i think also president trump misjudged that situation and the chinese position, he thought that he can use the maximum pressure or the war of tariffs here and taxes there. he thought that, the chinese will throw the towel and they will say, "ok, what you want? we are ready to agree on any agreement." this is a big mistake. really we have a war with china, a trade war with china, a war with venezuela, a war with iraq and we don't know when the next war is coming, so why this warmongering on trades...? this is the problem of the whole world, we have an administration that knows one thing is to put pressure, maximum pressure, use the military power in order to make the other people surrender. it does not work. i believe the donald trump doctrine of maximum pressure to make the other people submit, it does not work, neither

in iran nor in china. before we leave the china topic, i want, as we have isabel here, focusing on decision—making in the chinese structure, because the rest of us, we can see into some decision—making. in china it is very hard. what is going on? is it a monolith, as some present it? is it xijinping decides because he's boss? he is certainly chairman of everything and it is a black box. i think the best description is fragmented authoritarianism. you have an authoritarian structure where decision—making goes up through the standing committee to the president, who is now chairman of a whole series of what are called leaning small groups which makes policy. his problem is that below that there is this a vast

anarchic unruly place in which he has to negotiate. and on this issue, it is a difficult position he finds himself in. how does he even present to himself his choices? very good question, but you have to look at his... he also needs public opinion and that is something people forget about in china. he has a slowing economy which is part of a fairly normal cycle, so he has to think, how do i get through the middle income trap? how do i keep various constituencies happy and how do i secure the future? they decided to secure with advanced technologies which is part of the war with the united states and they can bring to bear on that challenge everything from finance to industrial policy to security policy, and that is the danger of the chinese state operating in global markets — no other country can do that and can't undercut the competition

in the same way and no other country can use the leverage of its enormous market to win concessions, and no other country can say to its partners, as they did with britain over the hinkley point c, that if you cancel this, you won't get anything else. no other country can mobilise in the same way across all sectors, and that is one of the big dangers. we are in a cold war, but a cold war with the world's second largest economy and what people have forgotten it is still a leninist state and you have to have an understanding of what it is like to deal with a leninist state and what that wants plus the complications of dealing with a hugely integrated and enormous economic power, we have never had that before. thank you for putting that so very well in a nutshell. bari says president trump wants war on everything, but he says does not want a major war in the middle east. and there are certainly no european cheerleaders for regime change in iran. but the us is deploying firepower to the gulf and evacuating diplomats from iran's neighbours.

who's driving this strategy in washington and the region? bari, you take the region. who is pushing for this in the middle east? i believe there are two camps pushing for this war. first, american politicians like bolton and pompeo, those people that are pushing fora waragainst iran, and then we have saudi arabia and uae and israel, they would like the americans to do the war on their behalf, they want them to destroy iran, to cripple it and change the regime. this is the crux of the matter in our part of the world, it is very tense, the latest reports are saying that saudi and other gulf states are agreeing to america to send ground troops, people are talking about 120,000 troops more naval forces to the region. already there is one... so the situation is very tense.

just last week we had two attacks, very important and very significant. one is against an oil installation four oil tankers were attacked in the united arab emirates, the second one was against a saudi installation near riyadh where two pump stations were attacked by drones from the houthis in yemen. it is very indicative, the message is very clear, that the iranian message very clear. we wouldn't let any oil be exported via th red sea, or via the gulf of oman or the arab sea and also other states. it is very clear. it means we are waiting for any mistake from here or there,

any problem or a third party to interfere to ignite the war there. we don't know yet. there are talks about war and at the same time there are talks about other things. but i believe the war chance now is very high. jeffrey, if trump doesn't want war, what does he want? i think this is an interesting case where he is surrounded with advisors who charmed him into positions — bolton as national security advisor and mike pompeo as secretary of state — who are much more hawkish than him. he is a bully who does not want to fight and this brinkmanship is the way he has done his "art of the deal" through his life. this trade war with china is really a tea party compared to what we see with iran because we are talking about a potential real war and the danger of brinkmanship, as we have seen in the 20th century, sometimes what you start you can't

stop, and that is a real danger in this case. trump seems to be somewhat aware of it, the irony is in all of that anti—obama ripping up the nuclear accord, what does he want? he wants to replicate that. this isjust pathetic. he ran on this "obama sold us and he should not have done it." now he would love to have a deal like that. isabel, what about the question of whether they can, assuming one of the things that insofar as you can divine the strategy from washington, dc is to apply great economic pressure via sanctions and to either achieve regime change through that or achieve a change of strategy from iran through that? is that likely to work? there are three countries they are trying to do this to — north korea, venezuela and iran — and it doesn't seem to be going very well in either case.

one of the reasons is that when trump came in he essentially declared war on his closest allies, and if you are trying to achieve your objective short of war, you need willing allies, you need to trade deal in the pacific that he tore up, would have contained china's economic ambitions. he has been very rude to nato, europe is not going tojoin him in any hostilities on iran, and as jeffrey said, he had a deal that delivered what he now says he wants, so he has gone about achieving his objectives in possibly the worst way. if you are not going to go to war, this kind of thing, you are a paper tiger, as the chinese would say. steve, the europeans and the brits are in a difficult position because this is an ally and they are signatories to that nuclear accord, signed in 2015,

they want itto work, they want it to work, but now they have got the major us player who has torn it up, left. where can they go? just to be parochial, the uk are in a problematic position because soon after the war in iraq they and other senior countries in the european union were involved in quite an effective deal with iran and i think tony blair was aware of it but it was jack straw who was heavily involved. that formed the basis of some of the work that obama did with iran. now, where will britain be? under huge pressure to back the united states, no matter what it does — the old default position — and yet not fully part of the european union, which i think will not back any kind of military adventure if it goes ahead. but i also agree that

trump doesn't want it, all the evidence when he speaks and acts is that he doesn't want it. when you surround yourself with hawks, even a president as macho as him can lose control of the process. that is the danger. and presumably, bari, one last question on this topic, what is our off—ramp here? obviously we think back to the efforts to get the nuclear accord under way, and that was conducted with 0man as a bridge for secret talks. are we going to see the sultan of oman playing that kind of role to help iran and us climb down here? i hope so, because no one wants war in the middle east because we have had enough. trump used the maximum power to put pressure on the iranians hoping they will respond and talk to him. they didn't. he said, "yhis is my phone number, the white house." he said, "this is my phone number, the white house." they did not ring him. and he passed the same number

to the swiss government because they are taking care of the american interests. "this is the number." they did not pass it to the iranians. he invited the swiss president to washington, to the white house, hoping he would mediate. i believe there could be some secret parks. maybe they are going on now. we know trump, he would like to avoid this war and have a deal. but he wanted it to his terms, not iranian terms. back to national pride — 8000 years of civilisation in iran, there were a lot of empires. you have trump saying do this, do that, they don't accept this. we have pride. "interests first, pride is nothing." no, in the middle east, pride is important, it is actually part of our history, of our culture. thank you, bari. let us be fully parochialfor a moment. "no—one else can get the job done." theresa may said it again on friday.

but she was talking to an almost empty room. even her own party no longer believes in her promise to deliver brexit and a bright future. the race to succeed her has begun in earnest and senior europeans call it a game of thrones on steroids. so, steve, this is something for you, it is your issue, but before we get into the house of lannister or targaryen or stark, let's mark the week we have just seen, because it has been a momentous week. we have clarification on one point of this multilayer drama, that theresa may's leadership is coming to an end soon. we do not know when because she clings characteristically. it is a myth that she doesn't like thisjob, do not feel sorry for her — she would carry on for the next 20 years if she could. she will be gone soon. i mean weeks. we already have the start of a leadership contest, so one thing is clear,

that a new prime minister will be in charge of probably the next crucial eu summit at the end of october when this current period of delay runs out. and so it is an extraordinary situation that she will be pushing one more time her deal, and yet here authority isso diminished, it was the launch of the european election campaign of the conservatives to an empty room, it is hard for a prime minister who has lost three times to come back for a fourth and win with such diminished authority. that is what is going on and it is part of a sort of crazy scene in british politics and a mere part. tragedy or comedy at this point? the play within the play. none of these steps that stephen has just listed solves the problem, that it is just deepening chaos without a way out. and i suppose the problem, though

0ctober seems a long time away, it is not long in parliamentary time once you have dealt with summer recesses and conference season. you get a new prime minister, we can imagine who that might be, who won't be able to take britain out of the european union on a no—deal basis with parliamentary approval. will there be a general election? who would win? it is chaos and none of it is going to cut this gordian knot. it remains the best option to go back to another referendum since parliament can't resolve this. as it is a case they need to go back to the public either for a referendum or a general election and get an unequivocal mandate for a leader to do something? i think that might be a problem! i think the challenge with that, i think so, but i think a lot of people in this country don't

think so and that is the problem. clearly nothing is clear, and i think theresa may set this up. i don't think, i don't accept the common wisdom that she was dealt a tough hand and the poor woman, she did the best she could. i think her brezit means brexit set us up for this because she never defined breixt and she allowed everyone to come with his or her own definition. and now we have this issue of it is too late, the camps have been... the tribalism is here, it is an entrenched and she is incapable of bridging it. i think this morning's newspapers, the tlmes said borisjohnson is the overwhelming leader in the popularity amongst the tories to be the next prime minister. borisjohnson is going to take us off a cliff edge if he has a choice. bari.

why theresa may prolonged the pain? if she is going to leave, and if she is going to leave in a few weeks, why she has stayed all this time and the outcome is appalling. to be honest, if borisjohnson is going to be elected as a prime minister, there wouldn't be any referendum, he will ignore that, public opinion. we are waiting for the local election and the european election. we had the locals. then the european is coming. this could be a listen to the parties who are completely paralysed and they were elected as mps, but they could not solve other problems. steve, quickly, are we going to get a clear message from the people at eu elections and is borisjohnson going to be the next leader of the conservative party? the two are connected. clearly nigel farage's brexit party

are going to storm these european elections and that will panic both labour and the conservatives, but especially the conservatives, so that will have a huge impact on the leadership contest because one of the framings will be, who can defeat nigel farage? that will help boris johnson. but it does not mean he will be guaranteed it. thank you all for a great discussion. that's it for dateline london for this week. we're back next week at the same time. goodbye. hello, we have another day of downpour dodging on our hands. yes, there are some

sunny spells to be had, but also some pretty hefty showers with the odd flash of lightning, the odd rumble of thunder thrown in. so the rest of the day will pan out like this — increasingly bright conditions with some spells of sunshine, but that scattering of heavy, thundery showers. it's likely to stay quite murky close to some of these eastern coast. conversely, a brighter day than yesterday across scotland. northern ireland tending to hold onto a lot of cloud, but in the best of any sunshine, those temperatures up to 18 or 19 degrees. this evening, the showers continue for a time, they then fade away overnight. a lot of dry weather with clear spells but also some areas of low cloud developing once again. some mist and murk, temperatures between seven and 11 degrees. quite a mild start to monday morning. through tomorrow, we do it allagain, cloud breaking up to reveal some spells of sunshine. a scattering of showers too. some of these heavy, some of these thundery but in the sunshine it'll feel warm — highs of 20 degrees.

this is bbc news, i'm ben brown. the headlines at midday. theresa may promises mps a bold new offer on brexit, to try to get her deal through parliament before she leaves office. the new national rail summer timetable comes into effect today — train companies say they've learned lessons from weeks of chaos on the network last summer. a bbc investigation finds a fall in the number of prosecutions for revenge porn — even though there are more reported incidents. #0h # all i know # loving you is a losing game. triumph for the netherlands in this year's eurovision song contest. but despair for the uk, which finished last. kompany parts company with his club — the manchester city captain is off