this is bbc news. the headlines: france and iran have agreed to look into resuming talks in a last—ditch bid to save the international deal to control its nuclear programme. iran's president has warned the country is ready to step up enriching uranium, further breaching the terms of the deal. tehran‘s also called on europe to ease the impact of sweeping us economic sanctions. more than a0 migrants have

disembarked from a rescue ship after it defied a ban to dock on the italian island of lampedusa. the captain of the ship said he was forced to act because of intolerable hygiene conditions aboard. it's the second vessel to clash with italian authorities in a week. emergency officials in california are warning of more aftershocks following the biggest earthquake in the us state for 20 years. the 7.1 magnitude quake was felt as far away as las vegas and over the border in mexico. emergency officials say the damage is not as bad as they initially feared, with power restored to most areas. it's 2:31am. now on bbc news, dateline london.

hello and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. and this week: threats of tanker tit—for—tat after an iranian oil tanker is seized off gibraltar. hong kong's protests turn ugly. and balloting begins. will boris johnson be britain's prime minister before the end of this month? my guests today — iranian writer amir taheri, political commentator adam raphael, isabel hilton of the website china dialogue and greg katz of the associated press. welcome to you all. over recent weeks we've talked a lot about rising tension in the gulf, with western powers blaming iran for attacks on half a dozen oil tankers. this week the action moved to the mediterranean, when british royal marines seized an iranian oil tanker off the territory of gibraltar. in the same week, iran carried through on its threat to breach the limit for enriched uranium in the 2015 nuclear deal.

amir, you start us off on this. coming to the oil tanker tit—for—tat, seniorfigures in iran say we should seize a british oil tanker in the gulf if the brits do not give us back ours. yes, you must remember there are two irans, one iran has an ideology and the other has a government. the second are not going to seize a british tanker, but the other iran might do so. iran is trying to manage its own internal contradictions, as it has been trying to do for the past a0 years, and the consequence of these contradictions sometimes is tension with outsiders.

but what is interesting in the case of the gibraltar tanker, why did the british decide to act after four years? because they have been smuggling oil to syria for four years. let's look at what the iranians are going to do, before we get to the brits. the iranian government has said it's a form of piracy — what happened off gibraltar, and said they will respond to bullies without hesitation. yes, this is not the normal rhetoric from the iranian republic, but in action, you see in the past few months, and many other occasions before, they never go beyond the edge, they want to appear that islam is victorious and they are fighting imperialism, and the usual shenanigans, but when it comes to brass tacks, for example with all these attacks on tankers, they made sure the tankers

were empty, nobody was hurt, you cannot prove in a court who did it. they are sending some signals that if you don't press is too hard and allow us to appear victorious, we are ready to give you everything. and this is what the islamic republic has done, they have always surrendered, but quietly. the problem is with president trump, who wants something in front of tv cameras. he wants the iranians to — the islamic republic to be humiliated, he says the american presidents played the iranian game according to iranian rules, in that they agreed everything be done quietly and behind the scenes, but after awhile the iranians went back to their old tricks. trump wants to personalise this, say, i brought them, obama failed, bush failed, i didn't. the iranians find it very difficult

to deal in this style. so it is a question of face. i will ask greg the question, why did the brits act at this point and obviously the iranians have been saying it is at the behest of the americans. how do you read it? i think it could be a back door arrangement with the americans putting some pressure. i think the british government is very anxious to keep the trump administration on side on half a dozen fronts. it could well be that this was some intelligence sharing and a prod from the pentagon to do something now. we really have no way of knowing, but to me that sounds plausible. and it's true, the brits could have done this at any time. the spaniards has said it was in their territorial waters and the british shouldn't have reacted.

i would dispute the term "ordered", i do not think the americans ordered the british. there are delicate issues going on at home, which we will come on to. is the uk ready for a test in the gulf? obviously we have heard from amir that he thinks that may not happen, but there is the ideological wing — it's a possibility. i would have thought it's the last thing we want to do. it — we have we have enough problems of our own. whether they realise the trouble they can get into on it, i don't know. i would have thought that was difficult. not only iran, china we are involved in at the moment, which we will come onto, i would have thought this was a time when we need a bit of domestic peace

and quiet, rather than to engage in foreign adventures. so where are you surprised to see the royal marines helicoptering rappelling onto the deck of the grace 1? i would have thought so. i would have thought there must have been considerable pressure. i take the point that you do not order anyone to do anything, you request them, but i suspect it was a pretty firm request, and interestingly, it would have been mrs may to take this decision, she decided she had to go along with it. we haven't heard from isabel yet. obviously everyone in this country, everyone remembers afghanistan, iraq and other big military adventures that have not always gone to plan. the talk of the risks around iran and around the gulf, i mean, very testing for our uk defence secretary. indeed, and for a uk government which is, shall we say, not terribly well—equipped to deal with any of it at the moment, and i think

we are entering really dangerous international territory in a condition where britain itself is kind of leaking below the water line. i have a number of questions about this whole operation. not least, why iran chose to send a fully loaded supertanker around the cape of good hope, which would inevitably lead it to go back into gibraltar. the geography of this is quite odd. you can — it's too big to go through the suez canal, but if the intent was simply to ship oil and bust the sanctions, they could have shipped it in smaller ships around the suez canal. and what i do not know, and perhaps you do, is how long this route has been practised and whether indeed supertankers have been sailing past gibraltar regularly for the past few years without interference. relations between iran and egypt are very bad,

they in fact have never existed since the islamic revolution. but ships go through the suez canal? egypt is on the wrong side from the united point of view in the syrian war. iran is trying to find a safer route. there is another point which might interest you. the european union aspect. because the ship is seized not because of american sanctions but because of european sanctions. yes. the sanctions on syria, not iran. and in gibraltar, people voted massively to stay in the european union, so this may be some gesture, those remainers in britain saying we can co—operate with europe, security is important, but also for the local gibraltar government, which demanded

from the british navy to intervene. right. we have to leave the iran story there, we will come back to it in the next week or so. thank you on that one. now we're going to move to hong kong. every year political leaders in hong kong and beijing celebrate the anniversary of the territory's return from british to chinese rule in 1997. so, it was a loss of face for them when the first ofjuly was marred by yet another massive street protest. but then a small group vandalised the legislative building and defaced the symbols of chinese rule. in hong kong's battle for hearts and minds, who is the loser now? isabel? it was certainly unhelpful. you see different reactions. the people's republic say that this demonstrates these people are vandals and ill—intentioned, they are criminals and do criminal

damage. if you talk to people in hong kong, and rememberwe have had millions and millions of people on the streets, without so much as a car being scratched in the last month. you know? these are the only demonstrators, they pick up their trash and recycle it, they're extraordinarily peaceful. and that — their perception of what happened in legco is nuanced. yes, people are very angry, because it gives an excuse for the government to crack down, but there was a demonstration just the other day of mothers coming out in defence of young people, this is after this, because now they are afraid that if people are persecuted or sentence, it could be up to 10 years in prison or transferred to the people's republic. i take your point on the hearts and minds battle there, but what about hearts and minds in the chinese mainland? you're just back from china, so the vandalism inside an assembly

building in hong kong, i mean, that is hard for me to imagine that going down well with the chinese public. indeed, and if you think that is the only news they get. if you're trying to follow this from inside china, as i was last week, it's either not there on the chinese language services, or the english language services, as soon as the word 'hong kong' comes up, the screen goes black. so all they are getting is the government point of view. some people in china undoubtedly feel that hong kong enjoys absurd privileges, that they are spoiled children and it is time they had a dose of reality. others, however, regard those demonstrations as sign of things they wish to do themselves. yeah. greg, what about the tactics? we heard from isabel about the tactics of the demonstrators

themselves, and obviously there's some who are prepared to take a tougher line than others. some of them calling for carrie lam, the chief executive's resignation, but what about the replacement? the replacement would be somebody brought in to crack heads, to speak loosely. one thing that struck me about the takeover was the reference to some of the british colonial systems, and the fact some of the protesters seem to be looking back with some sort of fondness of that. that was striking to me. i was there for the handover, and i spoke to a lot of brits beforehand, and thought they would feel with lots of nostalgia and sadness about losing hong kong, but the brits said of course not, the empire was a silly idea and we have to get rid of it, but these people in hong kong were looking back to some of the guarantees that they had under british rule, and i thought that was really striking. so i think whatever comes

next will be harder, i don't think there is any room for a soft approach at this point. and adam, we spoke about a number of things the uk is involved in in terms of foreign policy difficulty, and this is one of them. it is interesting that for many years the british government seemed, according to some critics anyway, to have tried to take a softer line on the grounds of the golden era kind of relationship with china, but here we have a british government standing up, and the chinese government saying, please do not interfere. what surprised me about the british government's response is that while they could have easily said, the mass protests were peaceful and respected and absolutely essential, they could have condemned the violence, and they did not do that. it left the chinese with an absolutely perfect opening, and ijust think, i am amazed we did not do so. most of the demonstration was peaceful, small group were anarchic and destructive.

this is such an obvious point. why they did not make it, i do not know. these things, the idea that it is all haphazard, these responses are carefully thought out. i have no idea, but it has provided the chinese with a perfect opening to accuse us, and relations are probably pretty pure at the moment. isabel? a view on that one? it was an odd omission. personally i am pleasantly surprised at the british government's involvement at all because it has been a slow erosion to the rights, we are guarantors of those rights under an international treaty. the brits do have standing on this and have not used it. so, i welcomed the fact that they did step up, and partly because they could see the danger that that episode

and the violence had created, which was the danger of giving an excuse of a much more savage operation. i do think that china has a real problem with hong kong. it needs at less than it did, but it still needs it, 40% of investment goes through hong kong. it comes at a time when the chinese economy is not doing all that well, it is running out of foreign exchange, it needs to have a constructive relationship with the financial community. where does that reside in terms of china? hong kong. do you agree with isabel on that, or do you think that in beijing they might feel that they can play a waiting game, that in 2014, with the umbrella movement, add the demonstrations petered out? at the last congress of the communist party, the president made two promises, the first was harmonisation, that china should become

a harmonised society. and one aspect of that is the concentration camps with muslims. i need to put this in context. the chinese call them 'educational centres'. yes, and hong kong has to become really chinese. the other aspect is the pretension that china cannot offer a model to the whole world. not only, we show you how to rule an efficient society. we have had an economic miracle that everybody is admiring, the same time our political control, we do not allow these so—called democratic tricks that are played in the west, the corruption that there is. how does that relate back to hong kong? they have to tame hong kong, hong kong is like a cult,

they have to tame it. it is a good time because britain, as a guarantor, as isabel said, has landed on its own mess and does not have the energy and time to come and do its responsibilities. but if the chinese succeed in suppressing hong kong, it will be bad news for the whole of china. there is another part of china that is really important in this, as the beijing regime would say, and that is taiwan. the elections next year, likely to see a much stronger affirmation of taiwanese self—determination, and that is a much bigger prize in many ways. the identity question. that the government has also pledged to recover, and that is going to be much harder of hong kong goes back. we have to move on there, i am afraid.

now to the uk. it is decision time for british conservatives. their leadership race started with a packed field and ended with two. now tory party members have heard all their promises on brexit and a better future. so the only question left — where to place their cross? againstjohnson or hunt? adam, as they contemplate their ballot paper, what will be the calculations in the minds of tory party members? who's going to win for them. and they have already actually decided this. i am afraid this race is over, it sounds relate to see it, but it is. the bookies are right, boris johnson is favourite and he will have a large majority. it was absolutely guaranteed to be so, unless some extraordinary event occurred, but is unlikely to occur. he's got to be found in bed with three small boys to stop him being made leader. he is going to be made leader,

the real issue, which is what i find dismaying is that these two candidates including boris johnson, made impossible promises which cannot be delivered. the conservative party is a party of business, a party of the union, a party of conservatism, they have somehow abandoned all of these three cherished principles for a mania, which is, you have got to get out of brexit, no matter the cost. we have had a poll showing the conservative association members would quite happily have severe damage to the economy, to destroy the union, so long as we get brexit. if you have that sort of mania rolling and you are encouraged in this mania by these two candidates, you're in a serious situation. by the end of october, because these promises cannot be delivered, we are going to have a political crisis in this country, probably or possibly a constitutional crisis, and it can only end in one of two ways, possibly an election or referendum.

so, we are in a bad situation. you have put the situation and a clear nutshell. starting with the borisjohnson road to victory? i would have to put in a caveat, it looks like boris, boris and all boris. i haven't seen any sign of movement towards jeremy hunt, but the ballot paper might be different once people get there. boris seems to be invulnerable. i was at a diplomatic event this week and people did not agree with me, to me when i hear boris and with lesser stridency jeremy hunt say we are going to leave on the 315t of october no matter what, i tend to believe them. i think that is what is likely to happen because to a degree that is how i read the mood in the european union as well. so i do not really see an election, a referendum, i see britain leaving the eu.

boris has been unequivocal, if he moves to number ten he cannot just change direction. but the method of getting there as troubled by parliamentary arithmetic. but the government is what deals with the eu, not parliament directly. it is going to get very confused, the words constitutional crisis, we will see that in october. this is another example of part of a nation being struck by ideological madness, we experienced it in iran. we want to turn buckingham palace and the white house into mosques, this is our official ideology and you want to get out of the european union at any cost, and there is absolutely no use talking about it, and i was in one of your programmes here and i asked my british friends to give me one example of why the european membership

of the european union has affected their own lives negatively, and the only answer i received was that they could not finish as many fish as they liked, but for that they are prepared to... that was a small demographic, obviously, so i do not think that is conclusive. i'm not saying it is conclusive, but the beauty of britain, and what made me an anglophile, is this is a moderate country, they do few things very slowly, they do not go for referendums like general de gaulle, for example. so they have been acting against character. i was a student here in the 19605, and i do not recognise it anymore. coming to october the 31st, do you believe, as greg is saying, we will be out on the 31st

of october, and some means of getting there will be found, however messy? no, not on the 315t of october, we will all take part in halloween, but that is not important, as a friend of britain i advise them to have a very close look at themselves, they are not behaving like themselves. speaking as a north britain, i think we are behaving very sensibly. it is definitely an england problem. we have a confirmed brexiteer on this panel, so i'm not going to allow you to make any remoaning speeches. going into borisjohnson‘s pitch, as we have heard, seems likely to succeed. do you disagree? i do not disagree. the evidence is that he will win. given that everyjob he has done

have been characterised by those who have worked most closely with him, as mendacious, lazy and incompetent. it is going to be interesting to see how he deals with his profound national crisis. and yet, charismatic, a winner, i confirmed brexiteer, his supporters would say. a wobbly brexiteer. he is not a conviction politician, he has recognised the tory party is in the grip of a cult, and boris has picked up on that. she is right, boris has not got very determined or very clear political views. i once asked him, how do you get your political views? he said, it is easy,

ijust find out what the wheelers are thinking, charles wheeler, he married into that family, and i know that if i go 180 degrees opposite i cannot go wrong. i want to finish with a question, the chief exec of the security services, does anyone agree with the rendition of our current situation? he is right, when the sort of opinions are held at the chief executive of the civil service. it shows what a grave situation we are in. that he should said in such a way, i don't have any moment like that. sorry to cut it short. that's it for dateline london for this week — we're back next week at the same time. goodbye.

the sunshine of return for the day had come it will be a fresh start to the day for anyone behind the by the front but it is lingering in the south giving splashes of rain, bits of misty and murky cloud over southwest in the muggy and warm but much fresher to start a sunday for the majority. we would light —— we have light winds and strong sunshine, it will feel pleasant enough. you consider north—westerly wind bringing showers into the gnostics of scotland, sharp ones across the pennines, the hills of northern england into the afternoon. by northern england into the afternoon. by that stage we should have cleared the remnants of the showers in the south and that by the front. winds are relatively light so feeling present in that strong july sunshine, temperatures reaching

about average for this time of year as we saw during the day on saturday, into the low 20s in the north and towards 21 or 22 in the south. cooler than it has been and fresher. most are fine on monday but showers on tuesday.

welcome to bbc news. i'm reged ahmad. the president of orion has urged other countries to save the deal with a phone call with the french president emanuel macron. it has announced on sunday it is raising its level of uranium enrichment, further breaching the agreement.