our top story. hong kong's preparing for another day of protests as crowds begin building near parliament. it comes ahead of the second reading of a controversial extradition bill, which would allow people to be sent to mainland china for trial. hundreds of businesses have said they will go on strike on wednesday. reports in the us say that the murdered half—brother of kim jong—un was an informant for the us spy agency, the cia. kim jong—nam was poisoned in malaysia two years ago. and this story is doing well on bbc.com: an ethiopian woman gave birth and just half—an—hour later sat important exams. almaz derese had hoped to sit the tests before her baby was born, but they were were postponed because of ramadan. that's all. stay with bbc world news.

now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. britain's opposition labour party should be in buoyant mood. the ruling conservatives are in a brexit meltdown, currently looking for a new leader, and languishing in the polls. but, far from taking advantage, labour is also haemorrhaging support, accused of incoherence on brexit and a failure to confront a corrosive internal strain of anti—semitism. my guest is labour mp and former minister margaret hodge. does she think her own party leadership is fit for office?

margaret hodge, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. britain is living through an extraordinary political moment. there is a real sense of crisis in this country, of course, concerning brexit. and yet you, as a senior member of the labour party, seem to spend most of your time and energy on the accusations of anti—semitism inside your own party. how on earth did this happen? i think — i agree with you, first of all, that it is completely ridiculous that i am having to devote so much of my time to this issue. i'm a very secularjew. i never thought that myjewish identity would define my politics or consume my time in politics, yet i've been forced into this position. because, sincejeremy corbyn became

the leader of the labour party, the anti—semitism, which has always existed on the fringes of the party, has been allowed to move to the mainstream. and the massive online anti—semitic abuse that i received really forced me to act. to put it into a little bit of context, i've been in politics a long time. five decades, really. a long time. and one of the most important battles of my life was the general election of 2010, when the british nationalist party, the fascists, challenged me in my own constituency. and that was a long campaign to re—establish trust among my electorate and to bring them back to the labour party. when nick griffin, the then—leader of the bnp, announced that he was going to stand against me, i thought i'd get buckets full of anti—semitic abuse. and i did get some. but what has really shocked me

is that, since 2015, i have received far, far more anti—semitic abuse, partly or mainly because of social media. but the other thing is traditionally that sort of abuse came from the right. i reckon two out of three of the stuff i've received now comes from the hard left. but that anecdote you tell about the 2010 election and your battle against the bnp, the far—right british nationalist party, is interesting to me, partly because i recall that one of the labour mps who came to your support, who came to your constituency tojoin your battle, was onejeremy corbyn. you praised him for the degree to which he went out of his way to battle the far—right on your behalf. and yet now, you accuse jeremy corbyn himself of, and i'm quoting from a recent daily mail article, a right—wing newspaper which you chose to write in, saying that, "under corbyn, we have been hijacked, and anti—semitism has

become the acceptable face of racism on the left". the very samejeremy corbyn that came to your aid. indeed, and i don't know why he has adopted this sort of anti — or tolerated or colluded with this anti—semitism within the heart of the labour party. i mean, i try to understand it, and i think it arises from a number of issues. for the hard left, for the extreme left in the uk, the issue of palestinian rights has always been a sort of a totemic issue. it's been a really key issue that sort of brings them together. and why shouldn't it be? and i was going to say, i have a lot of sympathy with the criticisms that people make of the netanyahu regime in israel and their treatment of palestinians in that region.

but what has happened, or perhaps what was always there on the fringes but is now there in the mainstream, is that people likejeremy and the people around him muddle being jewish, which i am, supporting the existence of a state forjews, in which they can self—determine their future, ie, the existence of israel, which i do, i'm not sure thatjeremy does that, and then being a paid—up member of the netanyahu fan club. i'm not that. so i think that's going... well, you talk — there, you've been a little delicate in your language, and you've talked aboutjeremy muddling things up. but let us be honest. you have, to his face, accused your own party leader, jeremy corbyn, of being an anti—semite and a racist, the most inflammatory, extraordinary accusations that you could possibly make against your own leader. indeed, and i do them with a very, very heavy heart. but ijudge people by their

actions, not their words. and nothing jeremy has done, even since i've put that accusation to him last summer, has led me to change my view. in fact, things have emerged... so almost a year on, you are saying that, werejeremy corbyn with us today in this studio, you would look him in the eye and say you are still, despite all the words you have issued, your denials, your constant denials, your reference to what the party's doing to root out anti—semitism, you are still yourself an anti—semite and a racist. i think that, if you look again at the actions and not the words, and what has emerged, when he's called jews as not having a sense of irony, the people that he's chosen to spend his time with, his support for a mural which absolutely was an anti—semitic mural... no, but hang on, you're quoting things which have been in the public domain a long time, and whichjeremy corbyn has addressed. hang on, some of which emerged after i made that accusation.

and then the other thing that i would say is that, if you think of some of these things that are being said aboutjews, if you were to put in there the word muslim, or if you were to put the word black, if you would put the word — you know, gay, or anything else, it would be utterly unacceptable. but somehow, somehow, being anti—semitic has become the acceptable face of racism within the party. so, hang on, we'll go through this bit by bit. there's important detail here. labour says it has zero, i'm quoting them, zero tolerance of anti—semitism. it is engaged in what it is now calling a militant fight against anti—semitism. they point to the many allegations which are currently being addressed in their internal disciplinary machinery. they point to specifics like, for example, just a week or so ago, the fact that a member of the national executive committee,

pete willsman, was suspended because of a recording which emerged of him claiming that israel was behind the accusations of anti—semitism inside the party. these are specific commitments, actions, disciplinary measures that are being taken. well, let me give you three recent examples which demonstrate to me that, again, their actions don't stand up to their words. so, for example, we have a leading member ofjeremy's inner circle, andrew murray, who there was a leaked memo last week that came off a private e—mail which demonstrated that he intervened in the consideration of one of the allegations of anti—semitism, to ensure that the person was not suspended. jeremy corbyn himself gave me assurances that there was no political interference in the consideration of those issues. you're saying that that was a lie. jeremy corbyn lied about that.

well, either he didn't know what his staff was doing, or he himself was being economical with the truth. well, which do you think? i don't know, he'd have to answer that. i really genuinely don't know. the second example is in the situation where alastair campbell admitted, after the european elections, that he had not voted for the labour party because — because of our stance on europe. he was immediately expelled, whereas a member of the national executive committee, who on a tape was heard to be really, really abusive against the jewish community, has only been suspended. so you wonder what that means about zero tolerance. and the third instance is that we end up with a candidate last week in a really important by—election where i, more than anybody, don't want the brexit party and nigel farage to succeed in getting an mp. you're talking about the peterborough by—election, which labour squeaked home, and the winner was the candidate lisa forbes, representing labour.

right, and there wasn'tjust one incident with lisa forbes where she had demonstrated anti—semitic views. there were three instances, and i — for the life of me, i cannot understand how there hadn't been the proper checks... two things — either they should have done the proper checks to ensure that she wasn't anti—semitic, or indeed, they were colluding with her views. lisa forbes has apologised for, on social media, liking... can i just say to that, a lot of people — that's one of the things. jeremy corbyn has apologised for supporting the mural. he's apologised for a whole lot of things. yes. that's important, isn't it? if you have zero... of course it's important to apologise. i thinkjeremy could apologise to the jewish community. that would be a move in the right direction. but there's one — if you've done

something like that, if you put in there words black, if you put in there words muslim, i think the whole world would have come down on these people. and i come back to this argument that somehow discrimination against the jewish community is tolerated. i now look at a lot of this social media, anti—semitic social media. and there is this sort of argument that people have, particularly if you're on the hard left, that all capitalists are bad, they're all in finance, and somehow thejews are central to the financial ills and the capitalist ills of the world. and then i think there's another international issue. so thejewish community is a very strong political lobby in america. and if you're on the hard left in the uk, you're anti—american. and you somehow, again, muddle that anti—americanism with anti—semitism. so there's a lot of views, principles and attitudes that come together that lead to this being a sort of acceptable form of racism on the hard left.

margaret hodge, you talk about the abuse you've received. you talk about your feelings toward jeremy corbyn and senior people in his office. what on earth are you doing still inside the labour party, if you really believe what you've said to me? i've fought racism all my life. i talked to about taking on the british national party, which probably for me was the most important political battle of my existence. yes, and yet you still sit inside a party where you say the leader is an anti—semite and a racist. it doesn't make sense. well, on a bad day it doesn't. on a good day, when i get up, what i think is the labour party's been around for 120 years. i've been a member of that party for 56 years. jeremy corbyn has not yet been leader for four years. ijoined the labour party as an immigrant and ajew because it was the party that fought racism, promoted equality, fostered international solidarity,

and i'm not going to give up on it. you see, otherjewish labour mps... i'm a fighter. well, you say you're a fighter, but otherjewish labour mps have decided this is beyond the pale for them, beyond their threshold of acceptability. i'm thinking of luciana berger, for example. she went off to join another party, change uk, and that has its own travails. but nonetheless, she was quite clear on the principles. some might conclude that you've stayed inside the party because you achieve desire as, it has to be said, a blairite mp, is to use this issue — to consistently use it to beat jeremy corbyn over the head, to undermine his leadership, and to change the labour party. and you know the person who believes that more than any other is one of the key figures inside the party, len mccluskey, leader of the unite union, who talks about the way corbyn is being smeared, and how anti—semitism as an issue is being contrived to hurt corbyn. let me say two things.

first of all, i do want to say about luciana berger, i completely understand why she took that decision. she also faced intolerable abuse. i believe that, at this point in time, it is much better to fight from the inside. will i feel that tomorrow? i don't know. now, is this about undermining jeremy corbyn? ijust put it to you. jeremy corbyn, when this started to emerge, 18 months ago, two years ago, could easily, easily have stamped it out. strong, clear leadership, demonstrating zero tolerance of anti—semitism, would have killed it as an issue. he chose not to. i'm going to fight for those central values. what it is... do you care about the labour party? of course i do. then why do you write in the right—wing anti—labour daily mail talking about how thejew—bashers have taken over your party and jeremy corbyn

is the centre of that. but what — how can you say that you want labour to win i'm a labour party mp and activist when you do that? it is because i care about the labour party, i fight to eradicate anti—semitism i always put fighting racism at the core of my political endeavour. there was an extraordinary story yesterday in the guardian newspaper yesterday suggesting there was a leak in the united states that reached the washington post newspaper, of a mike pompeo speech, speaking to jewish leaders in the us, where he was asked if the trump administration would worked with thejewish community in the united states if life becomes difficult for them in the uk — the implication being under a corbyn government. in response he said that yes, the us administration would take

actions to, his words, "push back" againstjeremy corbyn and do their level best. are you comfortable that you are being quoted and your campaign is being used in the united states by people in the conservative pro—trump movement who want to see the united states do whatever it can to stopjeremy corbyn becoming prime minister? i am deeply depressed by that, but the answer lies in the labour party changing the way it approaches the whole issue of anti—semitism. so it's injeremy‘s hands to get rid of this issue. before we end i want to twist the conversation towards europe and labour's other huge problem right now, which is making a coherent policy on brexit. now, you are a remainer. yep. you want a second referendum and you want the labour party to be clear in its support of remain.

as of today, jeremy corbyn is still not prepared to go down that road. so again, you are not winning that argument. but i am engaged in the argument, in that argument, and i can and hope that i will win it. what is a little depressing is that i am spending so much of my time in what i sort of consider rather negative activity, so rather than fighting for europe and for the concept of europe either on the basis of the economy or on the basis of being part of a big family of globalisation or on the basis of democratic values that are so sort of central. if you bring in democratic values, here are a couple of democratic values. 62% of your own constituents who voted in the referendum voted to leave. almost two—thirds of them. here is another. the labour party manifesto on the 2017 election was plain, promising to accept the result of the referendum, promising that

freedom of movement will end when we leave the eu. in effect, labour was committed to a hard form of brexit. that was the manifesto that you as an mp fought upon. where are your democratic values now? i think this is very interesting. i've never pretended to my constituents that i am anything other than somebody who believes we should remain and reform. and the interesting thing is that — what i say to them is nobody ever voted to be poorer. and as we've got to understand more and more of the implications of what brexit would mean, i become more and more convinced of the strength of that argument. now, we just had the european elections. and i spend a lot of my time making sure that i listen to and remain in touch with my local constituents. and i was worried.

i thought two out of three wanted to leave and i said remain. i wondered if i was out of touch. in the run—up to the election i did a lot of door stops and i came across a few things. many people said they were confused and did not understand it, could i tell them what to do? i came across brexiteers and remainers. and when i said to them, i began the conversation by saying that i was talking about brexit and when i asked them how they would vote, many of them were still loyal to labour and those who were not loyal to labour were more likely to be influenced by their attitude to jeremy corbyn then they were by their attitude to europe. and when you look at the results of the european election, in the only constituency in london that voted brexit, we had a labour majority. i think people will vote on an issue but their politics starts from local and as long as you can respond and listen and act on the issues that matter to them they will

actually totally accept and, in fact, look up to you taking a different view on some of the national and international issues. do you listen to fellow mps such as lisa nandy, ruth smeeth, gareth snell who represent constituencies where there was a strong labour brexit vote and who now say, firstly that people's opinions haven't really changed and secondly, if you insist on a second referendum, be very careful what you wish for because it is a high—stakes gamble. lisa nandy says that she strongly suspects if there is a second referendum, people in my area would vote in large numbers for no deal. that is the likely outcome. of course i listen to them. and i think it's beacuse their constituencies are not that dissimilarto mine. all i can do is speak from the experience of my own constituency. i am not the mp for wigan or stoke,

all i can do is speak there. sorry to interrupt. my point is that the remainers in the labour party are playing an extremely dangerous game because if you get your referendum and it goes to a no—deal brexit, you have become the inadvertent midwives of a no deal. which you say would be absolutely catastrophic for the country. let me say this. i don't accept that just because constituents voted to leave in a referendum that they necessarily have the same view now. that's my experience from my own constituents. the other thing is that all the options are horrible. i don't think any of the options of moving forward from this hugely complex situation are good. so i would much rather we were not in that position, but we are. for me, the best of the bad options is a second referendum because things have changed, people understand better.

this is hugely important not only for this generation, but for future generations and it will be a difficult referendum and there will be people who feel that we did not listen to the first referendum. but if it changes, we will end up, we will have a few years of a difficult period but i think the vote will go for remain and in that instance the long—term future stability and well—being of britain and the british economy will be secured. and it is because of that longer—term view that i take the view that i am prepared to go through that shorter—term difficulty. a final thought. we have talked a great deal about anti—semitism and brexit and the degree to which you are out of step with jeremy corbyn on brexit, too. can you, hand on heart, say that you want to see jeremy corbyn as prime minister of your country? i want to see a labour government because i know... no, but please answer the question. it is important. i want to see. that is how i will answer it.

i want to see a labour government. i represent a working—class constituency. is your party leader, jeremy corbyn, fit for that top office? well, i am working very hard within the party to ensure that the policies that we pursue, whether it is around anti—semitism, racism, whether it is around europe or, indeed, whether it is around the domestic social policies where i also have my arguments with the current leadership, that they will benefit my constituents. and i will carry on fighting. but you cannot tell me that you think your party leader, jeremy corbyn, is fit for office? a party is greater than its leader and in the current climate you can have a huge amount of influence on the direction of travel. we saw that on triton. at the end of the day we now have a party policy that does not support what our leader says. alright. and hopefully we will get that same success around anti—semitism and for europe.

dame margaret hodge, thank you for being on hardtalk. thank you. some really miserable weather out there at the moment, pouring with rain across the north, but it's notjust here in the uk where we're getting the really unsettled weather. in fact, much of western europe, all the way down to spain and portugal are experiencing below average temperatures and quite changeable weather. now there's a big low pressure

is stuck across northern france, around the channel here, and as long as there is low pressure here things aren't going to change. it will remain very, very unsettled. winds coming in across the north of europe but the winds will have to swing back around again. and they are blowing out of the south around central and eastern parts of the continent. that's the yin and yang of weather. one side of europe is hot and sunny and the other side is paying for it and it is cool and very, very wet. so here's the rain, early hours of wednesday morning. the low pressure, we've already established that, it's parked across this part of europe. so you can see spells of unsettled weather there across parts of germany as well. also we'll see thunderstorms drifting out of the south and they will affect southern portions of the uk. notice a bit of a lull in the intensity in the rain over

in the north, but that will get heavier later on wednesday. these blobs here, these are showers. thunderstorms developing almost anywhere across the southern portion of the uk. there could be some really nasty downpours. notice how this rain gets heavier as we go into the afternoon, quite menacing, threatening rain clouds. all of that is going to come in and bring a real deluge to parts of northern england, reaching parts of scotland and north—eastern england as well. a wet wednesday on the way. here's a look at thursday. the winds are blowing around like so, that low pressure‘s parked itself across the uk. the south, a few sunny spells, yes, but some thunderstorms. the temperatures 14—16 degrees, that's closer to the end of april, sort of may temperatures, really. so the low will wobble around the uk, bringing us again spells of rain and showers as we head

towards the end of the week. improving a little bit acorss europe. on balance, unsettled, as we head into the weekend. later there is a sign of things warming up, but not just yet.

hello everyone, glad you could join us. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon, in singapore. the headlines: preparing for more protests — activists are arriving at hong kong's parliament before the second reading of the controversial extradition bill. at least 19 people have been killed and thousands more left stranded after record rainfall hits southern china. i'm kasia madera, in london. also in the programme: the defeat of islamic state makes the world more peaceful as this yea r‘s the world more peaceful as this year's global index is