this is bbc news, the headlines: a day after attacks on two saudi oilfacilities, oil prices have risen sharply on international markets. the benchmark brent crude initially rose almost 20% but prices fell back after president trump tweeted that he had authorised the release of strategic us oil reserves if needed. clashes between police and protesters in hong kong have ended after a night in which several people were seriously injured. violence had earlier broken out between pro—democracy and pro—china demonstrators in north point. in the central district, police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse the crowd the former british prime minister david cameron has accused his successor borisjohnson of only supporting brexit to further his political career. in the latest extracts from his memoirs to be published in the times newspaper, he said mrjohnson did not actually believe in brexit.

now on bbc news it's dateline london. hello, welcome to dateline london. this week, the rocky trump—bolton relationship is over, but where does that leave american foreign policy? and the british prime minister who called the brexit referendum in 2016 breaks his silence on the current crisis. with friends like this, who needs enemies? my guests today — agnes poirier of french news weekly marianne. janet daley of the sunday telegraph. mina al—oraibi, editor of the national — a news service for the middle east. and irish broadcaster

brian o'connell. thank you to you all for being here. president trump says he sacked his national security adviser. john bolton said he resigned. twitter wars go with the territory but these two had much bigger disagreements in the 17 months in whichjohn bolton served in the trump administration. iran, russia, north korea, afghanistan. so let's take stock of american foreign policy three years into the trump administration. mina, why don't you start off with the successes, triumphs, victories, defeats. well, trump's foreign policy is yet to be determined because as you said, bolton is out as national security advisor and is not the first. we have been through a succession of officials. it is clear that donald trump wants to run his own foreign policy. but we are still not clear what that policy is beyond his belief in maximum pressure, whether it is on iran or north korea, threatening them with war.

and then offering the carrot, first the stick, and the carrot of the meeting. beyond the meeting, it is not really clear what can happen. for the time being it is clear there is a possibility of an opening up and talking. but about what? iran's problems, their actions in the region, continue as they are whetherjohn bolton is national security adviser or not. so while in the region we look with interest about who are the main players who are influencing the president, it really is at the end of the day what trump wants a do to clinch a deal. do you agree? it's about the president's personality and he ran as an isolationist. john bolton's days had to be numbered because he is an interventionist and quite an aggressive one. i could never understand how that was going to work. supposedly, john bolton was going to be there as a force for american influence, but what trump regards as an american influence is his personality. he thinks by calling for meetings,

whether it is with north korea or with iran, he can somehow through personal magnetism change or alter the situation. and he gets his photo shoot with that national leader, and then nothing. because he doesn't understand the complexities of foreign policy. so who on earth is going to intervene between him and his own narcissistic view of his personality to create a coherent foreign policy? i think international leaders realise an american election is around the corner. i think any deal or talk you are having with his administration may or may not last and i think that before that bipartisan worldview of america is so far removed from the reality we are facing today that there isn't that same thing of actually wanting the meeting with trump, because that can all be turned over.

what about you, agnes, because this is obviously a man who sees himself as a great deal—maker, he wrote a book on it, and yet do you agree with janet and mina that this personal touch is not really working? well, yes, i completely agree. when we got the news alert that bolton had been sacked or resigned or left, ithought, well, 0k, that is good news. but actually when you think about it, because i say this because he is very hawkish, because when he came into the scene 17 months ago we thought we were closer to a war with iran or strikes on north korea, but actually, for all his faults, he is a man of convictions. you can deal with him in a way because you know what he is thinking. there are clear directions. we might actually be in a more dangerous world now he has left. and it is a bit, you know...

when we talk about us foreign policy, is there such a thing? there is this man who works on impulses, there are no direction, so there is a tweet in the middle of the night followed by a spectacular u—turn, and his semantic debasing of the english language talking about "rocket man". then for the photo op, he meets with kim jong—un. that is what he thinks is reality. he has no sense of geography or even less of geo—politics. you have to hold your breath until november 2020 or another four years. agnes is missing john bolton, something i never thought i would see. brian, are you? or you looking at the policy on venezuela or iran and say that there are aspects of that maximum pressure strategy that were unconstructive?

i agree with janet but i think that it is somewhere in between the two. on the one hand, trump has kept out of iran, he has kept out of syria, he wants to get out of afghanistan, that would be electorally very popular to bring the troops home. but there are people like mitt romney and mitch mcconnell and those guys in the republican party that say that the taliban will be back in there, it will be a base for terrorism again, we will have to start all over again. yes, we have had an 18—year war, but what donald trump, probably as janet says, doesn't get, is that to get the deal in north korea you have to do more than just step over the line and back and you need more than just a handshake on tv.

you need to say, ok, we will do a phased denuclearisation. with rouhani and iran he will have to soften some of the sanctions before he gets anything in return. but he does need something like that going into the election next year. obama was an isolationist too. his withdrawal and failure to act in syria has had horrendous consequences for that region. america has always been torn between isolation and aggressive intervention. this is a long argument. i do think they are intervening in syria and iran, even if it is not boots on the ground, it has become so unpopular. the reality is that there are joint patrols between american and the turks. on iran, there are sections not only targeting iranian revolutionary guard, but there are proxies in iraq, lebanon.

the impact of sanctions on lebanese banks today is bringing hezbollah to the fore. worrying and polarising for a region that is so tense, in a way it's clear that obama's policy wasn't talking about the other problems that regions sufferfrom. i think that while we can criticise him, and i do criticise a lot of trump's foreign policy, some of the developments are outside of america's control. and by doing small things mean that they can have some control. benjamin netanyahu is facing his second election this year in israel, he desperately needs

to get his majority, he has threatened to annex what is a third of the west bank, the jordan valley, and he has actually said that donald trump says it is ok. it will actuallyjust... the americans, jared kushner, is expected to deliver his new middle east peace initiatives shortly, whatever is in that, but it has certainly closed down any chance of a two—state solution. on the question of the grand bargains or the grand diplomatic triumphs, what has happened to that deal of the century in the middle east we were expecting? it seems that in some areas they are moving ahead without an actual deal. for example the declaration ofjerusalem as the capital of israel despite all of the un resolutions. despite the world's anger about it, it still went ahead. the fact that america is taking unilateral steps ahead with israel,

is trying to create facts on the ground. you cannot ignore it. you are only exacerbating the situation. the deal as a deal, you have the envoy who was supposed to be delivering the deal, he has announced he is resigning in a few weeks. he will be out of the picture and what we are going to see is rather than a document which is what the americans promised, we're probably going to get bits of unilateral moves that won't bring us closer to a deal. let's go back to the question of what and who makes foreign policy. who makes policy? nobody apart from trump. simply because they come and go. in north korea you have to work. you have to work a long time.

the agreement we had with iran took 12 years, i think, and it was such a joint exercise between europe and russia and iran and the us. which was impacted mostly by iran, that is the problem with that. yes, it had everybody accepting the deal. they are the sponsor of terrorism in that region. you might say it was never a perfect deal, but i have no sympathy with the iranian regime, but i have sympathy with the iranians. that is the good thing about the agreement we had with iran. it is impossible. as we have said around this table. if president trump is going to choose some foreign policy successors, he presumably needs a narrative about what his foreign policy actually is. where is it going to come from? is it going to come

from china, from russia? elections are not based on foreign policy. it will be economic policy. it will be how well the economy is doing. he needs to appeal beyond his bases as everybody keeps saying. he needs to appeal and overcome the problem of his personality, which is what attracts his base but repels everybody else. i do not know how he is going to do that. the trade war with the chinese probably has more impact than anything we have talked about so far. and so the handshakes on the korean demilitarisation zone and so on, do they play into the us election in a useful way? does it matter that, as you have all agreed, there is not enough going on behind

those symbolic gestures? it does matter. but president trump is very aware of the power of tv and for him it is get it on prime—time television and getting the handshake with rouhani. i think afghanistan will have made the big difference. he can say that they got out of there and ended america's longest war. he isn't going to be able to deliver that. he obviously wanted to deliver it and it sounds like that was the final clash between him and bolton. assessment of that? the way the talks with the taliban went, whether they were undercutting the afghan government, and while all the criticism of the current president, they are the government that is recognised by the world. the fact that president trump's envoy decided to ignore that government, photo ops, tweets, the reality was that they wouldn't give them a copy of the agreement.

they could look at the agreement and then hand back the document. again, with everything we have said around the table, they are going to have to come around the table and actually have all of the interlocutors. not to choose one favourite interlocutor, and then think you can deal with them and force everybody to accept it. so there was no peace in afghanistan to coincide with the 18th anniversary of 9/11. there is a un general assembly this week, a lot of people in new york for that. is this an opportunity for the iranians, the chinese, the north koreans, the russians to look at donald trump, maybe hungry for something that looks good to his domestic base and think, shall we meet with him? shall we do something? is it an opportunity for anybody? that is the nature of the assembly at the un.

don't forget, the g7 meeting when the iranians suddenly appeared on the tarmac. macron and the europeans are trying to do something to ease the sanctions and convince president trump it is the way forward. they are pushing for a meeting with rouhani. this may happen, and it will be a moment of satisfaction for some, but then, two hours later it will be the same problem. it is very strange to talk about these things that have such an ephemeral impact. and on that thought we will leave it. something that is both ephemeral and enduring now, the brexit crisis in the uk. just when you thought it couldn't get wilder, mps were protesting the suspension of parliament in the house of commons, and a court declared

that the suspension was unlawful. there was no signs of a brexit deal with europe and instead a government document warning that a no—deal exit might bring shortages and public disorder. the tory prime minister who quit after losing 2016 referendum finally found his voice. nothing was calculated to make things easier for the present incumbent. janet, you start off here. take us through this week we have just seen. does it matter what david cameron says? it does in the sense that it absolutely confirms what most of us suspected all along, he had absolutely no idea of why people voted leave in that referendum. he seemed to think, he called it a psychodrama in the tory party. that's not what it was. millions of labour supporters voted for leave, and a great many people who have never voted in an election voted for leave.

this wasn't about the tory party and it wasn't about him. it wasn't about was johnson either, it was about a principal, self—government, immigration came into it, but i honestly think that immigration was a token, a symbol of the lack control. the democratic principle that you can vote, you can elect the people who make your laws, that was the lesson. and instead of taking that argument head on, cameron and osborne who led that remain campaign, instead of making a positive case for staying in the european union, and sacrificing some of our own sovereignty, they traduced and insulted and patronised everybody who wanted to vote leave. and the consequence of that was tremendous bitterness and tremendous alienation on the part of people who felt that genuinely sincerely they wanted to leave the eu

for what they considered principled reasons. that was a tragedy for cameron, and the consequence of it has been that there has had tremendous bitterness. it has distorted beyond recognition. because there was no acceptance of the fact that they had to have a legitimate argument. there had to be a debate. i don't want to spend too long in 2016 and in david cameron's book. brian, do you disagree with that? i think to say that immigration came into it is to skate over what was a core issue. when you say that turkey is going tojoin the eu, and nigel farage has a big poster which says "breaking point" and use words like "swamp" when britain was a member of the eu and had a veto over who joined the eu, i think that is stretching the truth. bear in mind that the tories have disassociated themselves from nigel farage.

it's a bit late now. i suppose the point that david cameron was making was that it was a false premise. hang on, there were a few other premises thrown around in what consisted of the debate. one was that there was going to be huge job losses. that there was going to have to be an emergency budget within a week if we voted to leave. the economic growth that was coming was going to seize up. are you saying it is going to cancel each other out? they said if we voted leave we would have to have an emergency budget. i don't want to spend too long on 2016. that had been discussed on this programme quite a few time. just one other point on cameron, agnes, will you deal with the question that a former prime minister suggests that the current prime minister

left the truth at home. there have been questions over borisjohnson‘s character in the scottish court of session, as we have just said, they ruled the prorogation of parliament unlawful on the grounds that the message was not the accurate message on why they were proroguing it. is this question of character going to hurt borisjohnson or have we moved beyond that? we have moved beyond that. it is nothing we don't know already. he is promoting his book and doing interviews and he is on the cover of the times saying he has failed. fine, but we have moved on. he might still be stuck in 2016. we are not, we are stuck in september 2019. the countdown is ticking. no, for all of us, europeans and the british, what is going to happen? it looks like it is going to... the last two weeks, i feel the tactics have shifted.

when you think that on monday borisjohnson is doing what he should have been doing right from the beginning in august, he is going to meet the eu commission presidentjean—claude juncker at long last. i have hope for that because he doesn't need the dup. all roads lead to belfast. he has lost a majority, boris johnson, he doesn't need the dup anymore. it's interesting, we are going back to things we discussed here two years ago. that is to say, making northern ireland part of a customs union or putting the border on the irish sea, it was always on the table and proposed by brussels, actually. brian, let's hearfrom you on this. the prime minister did see the irish taoiseach this past week, are you hopeful that things are shuffling in the direction

of a deal perhaps by dublin, but ultimately in brussels, and you have only got a minute to tell me. it is a bit more hopeful than it was. i think the expression being used is the landing strip. the landing strip is narrow and it is far away and time is very short. the landing strip is, as agnes says, around the northern ireland—only backstop. the dup are still important, but there is quite a way to go simply because borisjohnson has put on the table food, agrifood security and checks and everything else, is an all—ireland issue, but that only amounts to one third of everything that happens across that border. it amounts to a big chunk... so it is necessary but not sufficient condition? it's nowhere near what will be needed. i just want to inject an optimistic point. there has to be a deal, there will be a deal, because the economic realities

always trumps political ideology. the economic reality is that the economy would tank, germany is already in recession. ireland would be hit worse. worse than britain? yes, actually. germany don't want to go into serious recession. there are regions of the mediterranean where there are 40% unemployment rates. this is not a time to give up and say we haven't reached a deal. there will be a deal. that is the point that boris johnson campaigned for. he said i will take us out of the eu with or without a deal. as though a no—deal brexit was actually a feasible and good option. he came to power saying he would take us out of the eu come what may, and now he can't. in some ways, there is some optimism or realism that you have to do the tough work of getting a deal.

do you mean he can't, for the economic reasons that janet's talking about, the ones that we have seen in the document setting out the worst consequences of a no deal, or do you mean he can't for political reasons, constitutional or legal reasons, because parliament said he can't? all of those. the reality he also had... the conservatives coming out today are more important than david cameron or borisjohnson. the british public are hearing from various voices now. philip hammond, the former chancellor... it is a huge political problem as well. it is a huge problem for boris johnson, number one, over whether he can get re—elected on a promise that it may take anotherfew months, and can it get through the house of commons?

yellowhammer is going to frighten people away from nigel farage's brexit party. they'll be the greatest threat to the tories. nigel farage put himself in a corner and has said that only no—deal is acceptable. he will not accept anything but that. he cannot reverse it. that is going to help borisjohnson. it looks like nigel farage is pushing you towards shortages. agnes, a last word on this? it is pretty hopeful around this table for a deal. the eu doesn't want to get the blame for brexit. they never wanted brexit in the first place. and also, i think british mps are so exhausted that they will work to pass legislation. they will sit night and day

and they will pass that legislation. we will see. that is the view from the panel here this weekend. we are back same time next week. goodbye for now. hello. after a somewhat mixed bag of whether through the weekend, it looks as though the forthcoming

weekend will be dominated by an area of high pressure giving largely dry conditions. there will be some rain at times for parts of scotland and as befits the season they will be some chilly nights. it will be a chilly start today in northern england, much of scotland, northern ireland down to three, four or five in some locations. closer to 1a or 15 across the south. where you have had a blanket of cloud overnight, bits and pieces of rain over from that gradually pulling away further south. the best of the sunshine further north doing a little bit for the temperatures, getting up to about 15 degrees or so. it is this area of high pressure that keeps its way towards the british isles during the course of the week. but on tuesday, a lot of isobars there so the wind quite noticeable through the wind quite noticeable through the northern and north—eastern parts of scotla nd the northern and north—eastern parts of scotland and down the north sea coast. elsewhere, variable amounts of cloud, a lot of dry weather, later on we willjust push this cloud and rain into the north—western corner of the british isles. take care.

this is bbc news. welcome if youre watching here in the uk, on pbs in america, or around the globe. i'm maryam moshiri. our top stories: a huge surge in the price of oil one day after an attack on saudi arabia's largest production facility. water cannon and tear gas mark the 99th day of protests in hong kong. a special report from kashmir, six weeks after the indian government revoked its special status and locked down communication. more than a dozen families have told us that a child from their home was taken into custody. some were released after several days, some are still locked up. and we meet the 97—year—old former fighter pilot taking to the skies