this is business live from bbc news with maryam moshiri and victoria fritz. deal, no deal, or no brexit? businesses brace for more uncertainty as theresa may prepares to step down as leader of the conservative party. live from london, that's our top story on friday 7th ofjune. as theresa may gets set to depart, rivals are lining up to take the uk's topjob — we'll be looking at what it means for businesses. also in the programme.... as uber drivers battle over working terms, an australian court rules that uber drivers should not be considered employees —

we'll be live in sydney. the european markets are open and in positive territory for now. and it's been a week when president trump says he's prepared to offer the uk a "phenomenal" trade deal after brexit — while the imf says it's concerned about the us trade warwith china we'll take a look back on the last five days with our very own darshini david. as theresa may steps down today, we want to know, what would you do on your last day at work? let us know — just use the hashtag #bbcbizlive. keep the hashtag #bbcbizlive. it clean! hello and welcome to business live. the hashtag #bbcbizlive. we start here in the uk, where a new period of huge uncertainty is about to begin for businesses both inside and outside britain — over the future of brexit. today prime minister theresa

may will step down as leader of the conservative party. she will remain acting prime minister until a new leader is chosen. but who replaces her will decide the shape of britain's departure from the eu at the end of october — less than five months away. at the moment, there's a crowded field of 11 candidates, but that number will be whittled down to two by tory members of parliament in the coming week. then it's up to the party membership to chose one of the two. all have declared they want the uk to leave the european union, but they differ on the big question: how? try to revive the deal negotiated by theresa may, try to get a new deal, delay brexit past the 31st october deadline to buy more time, or leave without a deal — so called "hard brexit"? financial institutions and business groups have warned of the economic damage

of leaving without a deal. the international monetary fund says it would immediately tip the uk into a two—year recession. the uk government's own assessment is that the economy could be up to 9% smaller within a decade and a half. brian connell is brexit supply chain lead at auditors kpmg. hejoins me now. i bet you have been busy. we have. we have been doing a lot of work helping businesses prepare for brexit over the last couple of yea rs, brexit over the last couple of years, and it looks like it will carry on. tell me how businesses feel about this. we heard from the national audit of his today, putting the bill for the government alone for brexit preparations at $123 million, millions more spent by private business. surely everyone is beyond board of brexit at this stage. there are many that are. people who thought they would have this all done by the end of march are this all done by the end of march a re really this all done by the end of march are really feeling a bit fatigued about the idea of having to re—plan for no deal at the end of october. but there is no question that businesses are having to start

planning on that basis.” businesses are having to start planning on that basis. i need to pick myself up on my gamma, they are bored by brexit rather than board of brexit, to pick myself up on my gamma. being bored by brexit is as the least of our concerns, though, because we need to be talking about the investment that is not happening in the uk, investment being announced in other parts of the world. how difficult is it for the uk to pitch for business? it is tough. although there are many things about britain which make it a fantastic place like rule of law and corporate tax rates, it is difficult if you are part of a global business to try and convince investment to come to the uk at the moment. the uncertainty means that other countries bidding for the same investment pots are finding it easier. i wonder whether there is a silver lining, because of course, we have seen the value of the pound depreciate at some point. if we were to get a harder brexit or no—deal brexit come the 31st of october, we

would see sterling depreciate further. that is good news if you are an international investor looking at the uk, it makes it cheap. it does if you are an external investor looking to buy assets in the uk. it also makes a difference to different sectors. if you are a retailer whose costs are in dollars, your costs are going to go in dollars, your costs are going to 9° up in dollars, your costs are going to go up if the pound depreciate. if you are an exporter, it may be better. but it is not the only risk. internationally, we have trade ta riffs internationally, we have trade tariffs and domestically, the threat ofa tariffs and domestically, the threat of a general election. yes, the risk of a general election. yes, the risk ofa of a general election. yes, the risk of a general election. yes, the risk of a general election. yes, the risk of a general election laid on top of brexit is a real worry for businesses. the sooner we can move into more certain territory and allow businesses to implement the plans they have had in place, everybody will feel a lot happier. amen to that. brian connell, have a good weekend. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news talks between mexico and the us aimed at averting a new trade war will resume for a third day on friday. president trump has threatened

to hit all imports from mexico with rising tariffs — starting with a 5% tax from monday — unless it curbs illegal immigration over the border. the german government is considering a merger between struggling commerzbank — of which it's the biggest shareholder — and dutch rival ing — according to a report by bloomberg. merger talks betwen commerz and deutsche bank collapsed last month and the report claims the focus has now shifted to a cross—border deal which might mean fewer job losses. mastercard has suspended an advertising campaign with the brazilian football star neymar, after he was accused of raping a woman at a luxury hotel in paris last month. mastercard says it will stop using images of the paris st germain player until the situation is resolved. neymar strongly denies the allegation. let's go to asia now — and a legal boost for uber in its battle with drivers over working terms and conditions.

an australian court has ruled drivers should not be considered employees. sarah toms is in singapore and can tell us more this appears to be the polar opposite of what happened in the law courts here in the uk? yes, it's a major victory here for uber down under. but a very different decision from what is happening in the uk, where uber is of course appealing the decision that was made. but uber will be happy here in australia. workplace law experts and unions have been slamming the ruling, saying it has left thousands of uber drivers unprotected. so after two yea rs, drivers unprotected. so after two years, the fair work ombudsman wrapped up its investigation into uberand wrapped up its investigation into uber and found that its drivers were independent contractors, not employees. that means that uber drivers in australia are not entitled to minimum wage or holiday

pay, sick leave or annual leave. these are usually the benefits that employees receive. regulators said workers were not obliged to work. that is a key consideration in the decision because it is required under australian law to see whether there really is an employment relationship that exists. the ruling removes the risk of action being taken against uber, but it does have further repercussions, as it could inform similar investigations by regulators in other countries. thank you. let's take you briefly through what the markets are doing. chinese stocks are closed for a public holiday, but generally, asian stocks are tracking stocks on wall street. let's roll onto europe. there is the european stock market at the moment.

it is up in london and in the rest of europe, tracking gains elsewhere. let's go to new york now, where vegan food is still very much flavour of the month — at least for traders on the stock exchange. shares in plant based burgerfirm beyond meat have soared 400% since their debut last month. and investors‘ confidence has been rewarded by the company's first set of results as a public company — which showed first quarter revenue more than tripled. michelle fleury has more. as the first of its plant —based food companies to trade on the stock exchange, beyont meat had already attracted attention. their burgers, made from vegetable starch, have been popular with consumers. numerous american supermarkets have responded well. the early buzz about the company may have been justified. as well as a sharp rise in quarterly

revenue, the company has also now said that it expects revenue for the whole year to be more than twice what it was in 2018. it seems sales are growing nicely, and yet the company still hasn't reached profit. overall, it lost more than $6.5 million in the first three months of the year. but for now, investors seem the year. but for now, investors seem to have an appetite for beyond meat‘s shares in line with the public‘s appetite for its burgers. joining us is fiona cincotta, market analyst at city index. this is an incredible story, the beyond meat popularity. it shows how much appetite there is amongst investors. boom boom! iwant much appetite there is amongst investors. boom boom! i want to get that line in! i did that yesterday as well. it is a phenomenal success story. beyond meat really plugs into this move towards more environmentally friendly, and a

healthier way of living. that is huge right now and they are picking up huge right now and they are picking up on it. it is one of the big success stories. there have not been many big success stories this year, but i was one of them. i tried a vegan hot yesterday from another company, and it did tastejust like a hot dog. it was amazing. that is wrong. it is not wrong! what is in a hotdog anyway? you don't want to know what we thought might be in a hotdog. lots of horrible things. let's move on and talk about us jobs. some pretty soft numbers coming out from the adp report earlier. yes, the expectation is for 175,000 jobs to have been created in may, significantly down from april. but things have taken a turn for the worse recently. and the expectation

will be that it could be weaker than that figure because of the weak adp figures. there is usually a high correlation between the two. markets will be interested in this because of this growing expectation that the federal reserve will be cutting interest rates. so a can figure here will boost that expectation. we could see the dollar taking another four lower and us stocks being pushed higher. fiona, come back to talk us through the papers. still to come... president trump has said he is prepared to offer a phenomenal trade deal. we will have the latest with dharshini david, our very own economics correspondent. you're with business live from bbc news.

now, let's talk about bank overd rafts — they are about to get a whole lot less painful. or at least that's what is being promised. they could be scrapped and replaced with interest rates, to make it easier for people to know what they have to pay. joining us now is chris woolard, executive director, financial conduct authority. these are sweeping changes that will hopefully make the system simpler so that people will know what they are paying if they go into an overdraft and also pay less. talk us through what changes are implemented. what we are putting forward today is probably the biggest set of reforms of the overdraft market for a generation. we think overdrafts need to be much simpler, fairer and more transparent for customers to understand. in particular, we have a number of reforms we are putting forward. the first is around what is

known as unarranged overdrafts. this is where you don't have a pre—agreement with your bank to go overdrawn. those costs can be very high. in some cases, the fees customers are paying around this are ten times the level you see in payday lending. so we are proposing the alignment of those unarranged fees with the more common unarranged ove rd rafts. fees with the more common unarranged overd rafts. in fees with the more common unarranged overdrafts. in practice, that means that if you borrow £100 unarranged, at the moment it cost you about £5 a day to do that. under these proposals, that cost will falter somewhere around 20p a day. chris, we know that back in 2017, firms made over £2 billion from overdraft alone, with around 30% from unarranged overd rafts. alone, with around 30% from unarranged overdrafts. 2016, 50% of these fees came from 1.5% of very vulnerable customers. why has it taken you so long? that information

obviously comes from the reports we have put together and the evidence we have gathered around how overd rafts work. as we have gathered around how overdrafts work. as i said, this will be a fundamental set of reforms of the market. it is important when we intervene in this way that those reforms are thought through and we know that it will help the vulnerable consumers. we completely ee, vulnerable consumers. we completely agree, because it is our evidence you have quoted at me, that this is an area that needs to change. the other thing that needs to change is making it simpler for any other thing that needs to change is making it simplerfor any member of the public to understand what they are paying for an overdraft. thank you. you're watching business live — our top story: theresa may is stepping down as leader of the conservative party today. she will remain acting prime minister until a new leader is chosen. but who replaces her will decide the shape of britain's departure from the eu at the end of october —

less than five months away. and the importance of that the business is what we are focusing on today. it's been another big week for global trade — from president trump's state visit here in the uk, where he said a "phenomenal" trade deal with the britain was on offer after brexit — while the imf has expressed its concern about the us trade war with china. you should say the word phenomenal with more gusto! our economics correspondent is dharshini david is with us 110w. shall we start on trump?” shall we start on trump? i have only had one coffee. she has had about 20! we were actually quite good this morning. not a vodka. we are covering all bases. the vegan hotdog

was not on the menu at the state banquet, but it was a huge week, trump saying we could be looking at a phenomenal trade deal. all sorts of questions about what that could mean in terms of what he might want in terms of public sector procurement. does he want to get his hands on the lucrative nhs market in the uk? we are no clearer today about who will be sitting in 10 downing street when it comes to negotiating trade deals. he has also had his eye on mexico. a mexican stand—off. had his eye on mexico. a mexican stand-off. is a mexican stand-off is continuing, third day of talks now. there are some tightening up at the border but the threat is still looming large and what this could mean. and while this is happening, christine lagarde of the imf isn't mincing her words. she has said to the us and china that it is self—inflicted wounds when it comes to the trade will notjust between those countries, but across the

globe. many economists are echoing her one, saying we could be looking at their weakest growth next year since 2009. what happened that year? we are of course talking about the debts of the financial crisis. so this is not good news. i was talking to christine lagarde at the imf spring meeting in washington and at that point she said we are at a delicate moment for the economy, but things should get back in the second half. she is now sounding more gloomy and i don't think it is because she hasn't had her coffee. by because she hasn't had her coffee. by the way, she drinks a lot of coffee. successful women down coffee all the time. look at us. moving on, the european central bank is in focus this week. for different reasons to what we have seen before. there has been a real mood shift. i a lwa ys there has been a real mood shift. i always feel like a grim reaper when i come on here because i am always bringing gloomy news. you look the opposite. thank you. but from the european central bank this week, we have seen a european central bank this week, we have seen a message european central bank this week, we have seen a message saying that our

economies need more tlc. the ecb suggested yesterday that we will not see interest rates moving from their ultra low level until the middle of next year. some people are now expecting the federal reserve to see two or three cuts this year because the forecasts are looking we can now for next year. the ecb and our very own bank of england in the uk, when we do see interest rates move, they are likely to be under new buses. both of those banks are having a changing of the guard in the coming months. and when you think of the inheritance for both of them, whether it's the new head of the ecb 01’ whether it's the new head of the ecb or whether you are looking to lead the bank of england, what a mess. right across the piece. what kind of tool box do they have to do anything? that is a good question. we are sitting here ten years after the financial crisis in this era of ultralow interest rates, still. and

well growth is pretty much stagnant compared to where we would like to be. when you look at what has happened with real incomes, for example, the uk and italy and the us in particular, we are not doing better than prior to the financial crisis. we have very little wriggle room here. we had all that money thrown at it. has it paid off? if we weren't talking about trade wars and brexit, that is something we would be looking at in much more detail. dharshini, thank you so much. let's talk about alexa now. amazon's smart home assistant is the most popular on the market — but it's in a fierce race with rivals from google and apple. but there are ongoing privacy concerns about what digital home assistants pick up and pass back to the tech giants. at a conference this week, amazon announced new technology allowing longer conversations with alexa, and talked about the potential for her detecting human emotion. dave lee has been speaking with amazon's head of alexa, dave limp.

we do think that there are interesting ideas that might come out if you could understand the emotion of somebody. if you think about having a life coach, one of the things that life coach might listen to is your tone and how you deal with that. we don't have a specific features or specific products to talk about right now, but we did get excited enough about the science to publish the paper. amazon come under fire recently from reports that human beings were listening to recordings made through alexa to improve the service. were you surprised that the reaction to those reports? i was surprised by the reaction to the reports that we re the reaction to the reports that were inaccurate. the fact of the matter is that that has happened since the beginning. we check data. it isa

since the beginning. we check data. it is a tiny fraction of 1% of the voice recordings. obviously, customers have complete control of those voice recordings, so if anybody is concerned, they can delete those recordings and we are trying to make it easierfor delete those recordings and we are trying to make it easier for you to delete those. but the system gets better for you personally if you don't do that, and we use human beings for a small percentage of 1% of the utterances to ground truth them. they are almost always amazon employees, the vast majority of them. what was not correct is that they don't have access to personal information. but your privacy policy does seem vague information. but your privacy policy does seem vague on information. but your privacy policy does seem vague on this. itjust says he will use the data to improve services, including speech recognition and natural language understanding. could you not be more clear about that? could the phrasing be reworded? well, there are other features that are being improved automatically, and it has to cover

that as well. but we could be more specific. that was amazon's head of alexa. we asked you earlier about theresa may's last day at work. she is leaving as leader of the tory party, although she will still be prime ministerfor a while longer. we wa nted prime ministerfor a while longer. we wanted to know what you would do on your last day of work, or indeed what you have done on your last day of work. we have had lots of tweets in response. one viewer says, my last day was of indifference to managers, who were devious and corrupt, but a joyful goodbye to my team, followed by a measured egress. no spite or venom, just dignity. never says i would stay in bed. james says, i would take everyone for lunch and request forgiveness for lunch and request forgiveness for all my errors. that is nice. another says, i would take games in. malcolm said, i would spend it with you and victoria fritz. kind of creepy, because we don't work together. another says, iwould

smile. optimistic brewer says, together. another says, iwould smile. optimistic brewersays, i would go around all the backstabbing two —fa ced would go around all the backstabbing two—faced colleagues and pass on a few home truths if i hadn't done so already. wow. fiona cincotta from city indexjoins us again... have you had a last day at work you can tell us about? i am going on maternity leave, so it is a bit different. the repercussions would be serious. if you were to leave your currentjob, which of course, your currentjob, which of course, you love beyond all measure, what would you do on your last day? nothing rebellious from me. definitely more of a social event. i like the idea of a long lunch.|j would definitely graffiti under this desk. i would chew gum and stick it under this desk so the next time, another presenter like you would get another presenter like you would get a nasty surprise. someone has done that before. i have been like, what is that? let's move on and talk

about alexa, very briefly. this is a story in this magazine. they were looking at how much personality a smart speaker should have. this has come up in a new episode of black mirror. a un report has been asking the same question. what do you think we should be using these smart speakers for? it is a really interesting debate. if you think they have too much personality, not only are they a bit creepy, but there is also that sensation, are they just being the there is also that sensation, are theyjust being the mouths of the tech firms? they don't have enough personality, then there are more like doormats and they will not progress very far. so it's a fine balance that needs to be struck. fiona cincotta, lovely to have you on the programme. thank you for putting up with us for 25 minutes. that's it from business live today. there will be more business news throughout the day on the bbc live web page

and on world business report. we'll see you again tomorrow. hgppy happy friday! bye—bye. hello there, a spell of wet and windy weather in the forecast over the next 2a hours, that wet and windy weather courtesy of this area of low pressure you can so a soggy start with some heavy and persistent rain for some southern counties through rush hour this morning. that rain continues to push its way north through this afternoon to parts of northern england and eventually into southern and central scotland. a drier picture for northern scotland and northern ireland. some sunny spells, but you can't rule out one or two isolated showers. a largely fine and dry day for the northern isles with prolonged sunny spells. a breezy day across the board. the winds will strengthen further

south. behind the rain, we will see something brighterfeeding south. behind the rain, we will see something brighter feeding in, south. behind the rain, we will see something brighterfeeding in, the rain lingering for western parts of wales and south—west england. with the brightness, though, we are looking at heavy and thundery downpours feeding in from the south. there could be some disruption with tricky driving conditions and localised flooding. the wind is strengthening as well, so a windy night to come, with further spells of rain and showers, the rain quite persistent for southern parts of scotland, parts of wales and into northern ireland as well. that takes us into tomorrow, which starts off with plenty of cloud. there will be further outbreaks of rain and showers, the showers perhaps thundery for north—east england.

and again, a windy day across the board. we could see gusts of a0 to 50 miles per hour further south. that area of low pressure clears towards the north—east as we move into sunday, so we will see lighter winds and some sunny spells, but still the risk of a few showers. and some scattered showers, but also sunny spells, the winds lighter than we will see on saturday. bye— bye.

you're watching bbc news at nine with me annita mcveigh. the headlines: ido i do hereby declare that lisa forbes is duly elected as a member of parliament... labour sees off a challenge from the brexit party to win the peterborough by—election with a slim majority labour's candidate says she won on local issues — notjust brexit. it did come up, but not as much as people think it might have done. they care about getting a gp appointment, fly—tipping and litter thatis appointment, fly—tipping and litter that is all over the community. brexit is the defining issue of our age. labour won because they have data and because they know who they are voters are in the constituency and they managed to turn enough of them