argentina's left—wing candidate alberto fernandez has won the country's presidential election. the current centre—right president, mauricio macri, has conceded defeat. as president elect, this is bbc news. mr fernandez said he would meet welcome if you're watching with mauricio macri to discuss here in the uk or around the globe. the political transition. i'm duncan golestani. he added that he would collaborate our top stories: "in every way he could" to deal with the country's poor economic situation. is leader abu bakr al—baghdadi is killed by us forces — but america's allies warn that the islamic state group us forces have killed is not yet defeated. the leader of the so—called islamic state group, abu bakr al—baghdadi, often described as the world's most wanted man. but france and britain have warned a state of emergency that the islamic state group across california as wildfires continue to spread, whipped is not yet defeated. up by ferocious winds. a state of emergency has been declared across california as wildfires continue to spread, argentina's left—wing candidate whipped up by strong winds. alberto fernandez has won the country's presidential election. nearly 200,000 people in the north of the state have been ordered to leave their homes. tens of thousands of homes are under threat from the blaze. now on bbc news, dateline london. and — sir stamford raffles, founder of modern singapore —

hello, welcome to the programme which brings together some of the uk's leading commentators with the foreign correspondents who file their stories for the folks back home with the dateline london. this week, trick or treat? a hallowe‘en brexit perhaps gives way to a december election and a new year's resolution, but will borisjohnson be running the country by then? and will the uk be governable, whoever‘s in charge? in washington, donald trump declares a "big success" in northern syria as he tells the middle east to solve its own problems. two leaders anxious to escape foreign entanglements. with me, to discuss them, mina al—0raibi, editor in chief of the national,

the canadian broadcaster jeffrey kofman, bronwen maddox, director of the uk's institute for government, and a former foreign editor at the times and the british political commentator, steve richards. borisjohnson‘s brexit deal has already achieved something his predecessors never did — the house of commons voted for it. unfortunately for mrjohnson, it then rejected his timetable for debating it — 110 pages of new law to be considered in three days — a timetable which would have allowed him to meet his "do or die" deadline of this coming wednesday, 31st october. that denied, the prime minister offered mps another sort of brexit deal, "you can have more time to debate, providing you allow me to hold a general election on 12th december. " the british prime minister does not have a parliamentary majority. in some ways he resembles prometheus, a character in the greek mythology of which he is so fond, chained to a rock, each day an eagle was sent by the gods to eat out his liver, only for the liver to grow back overnight to be eaten again the next day. steve, is brexit something so indigestible to the british

political system that we're never going to quite get over it? that is certainly the case. even if britain were to leave, it would still be with us for years to come, because the withdrawal agreement incidentally will be far more tortuous than what happened so far. it's also become indigestible because of the approach of the two tory prime ministers who've had to deliver it. both of them, we forget with theresa may, that it was only at the end that she reached out to other parties. this is what prime ministers have to do in hung parliaments. you can manage a hung parliament. i have just done a book on modern prime ministers and it is surprising how many prime ministers were in hung parliaments, for up to five years, and often they got their way. they did it by twisting

and turning and reaching out. and it is deeply unglamorous. we have in borisjohnson a figure who likes swashbuckling assertiveness. "do or die." "october the 31st". then, he doesn't succeed. "we're going to have an election." " every "every day until i get one". you have to work with a hung parliament, and he behaves as though he has a majority of about 200, loses, and then complains. there are ways of managing this, i think, in this hung parliament, but that is not the route he has taken. your organisation does a lot behind the scenes talking to parliament. do you have a sense that brexit has left a mark on the way politics operates, whoever wins an election campaign? even if you waved a wand and all is done tomorrow, you would still have changes and a lot of loose ends that we would need to

address very quickly. it has changed the balance between parliament and government, and, yes, some of that is because it is a minority government. but it has given a lot more power to mps, and the speaker has broken with convention, a lot more ways in which they can grab control of the business of parliament, which has really been the government has my power. we have had changes in the speakers's role. this is the last week ofjohn bercow as speaker. and there are nine speakers lined up who want to do it. there are real account —— constitutional problems. then civil servants, suddenly there are a lot more of them. the austerity shrunk the civil service and this grew it. austerity shrunk it by about 100,000. but brexit is adding,

very quickly, thousands more. a lot of them doing brexit, and a lot are very prepared to do brexit in whatever form, but concerned about the things that can't be known, for example, about no deal, and concerned about precedents being broken, and changes within the service. and also the impartiality of the civil service. that idea that you have to forge consensus, however hard it is with your political rivals. is that something we will have to get used to again? i think what is interesting is that actually what is going on here and in the us, i'm not a believer in astrology, but there has to be something in the way the planets are aligned. you have two inglorious leaders in trump and johnson who believe themselves to be endowed with the power of the divine right of kings, yet

they are both running into their two countries' constitutions. i think that is a caricature ofjohnson. he is a tactician in this. but that being said, he is finding that he can't run roughshod over parliament. in the same way that trump is finding that congress does have the powers to pursue impeachment. for a lot of things that have conspired to create these situations, social media and the internet giving voice to the voiceless and two leaders in different ways, i think these are tests of the resilience of constitutionality. i think the encouraging thing — i don't know what the outcome is going to be, but i do think that we are seeing that back we are seeing so far that the political institutions are holding and there is some balance.

i would say more in canada and the us than here. i think we are seeing a fracturing here. yes, they are holding, but to watch parliament, time and again, defeat the prime minister, and yet he stays and yet nobody knows when the election will happen, if it does happen. so there is a concern that actually, these meaningful votes are no longer meaningful. and what does this mean in the long term? this is trump speak and orwellian. "meaningful votes". that is what they are being called here in the uk. that involves the seed in the voter's mind. that is not trump speak, that came out of a piece of legislation. it is not to speak. there is a strain, not because it is uncodified, not written down in the same place, but because so much of it assumes that the uk holds together. and once you start putting strain on the different parts of it, you've

got something very uncomfortable. there is also a political context which is at odds with the parliamentary context. so in fairness tojohnson, he has to remove the threat of the brexit party. therefore, he has to pursue a hard brexit, whether he believes in it or not. or at least the language has to be hard. and the reality is that there is clearly going to be a divergence from the european union that was by no means the only brexit option. maybe he believes in it but he had to do it to deal with the threat of the brexit party. but in persuing that option, he won't get it through easily. there is a majority in the end for a softer brexit. a majority, sorry, in the commons. for a softer brexit. they have protested in the past and lost. but the benn act got through. it requires you do not leave without a deal.

they have to consider this form of brexit, earlier this week, he got a majority. but if he were to pursue that and get a majority in the commons, and lose his erg group of mps, there brexit ha rd—liners he would face a bigger threat. he might. i think the mood has changed from words of "getting brexit done". you can feel the exhaustion, or whatever their views on this that this needs some resolution. even if you acknowledge all the economic costs the political costs might be greater. i think there has been a change of mood. we bring it back, accept the amendment on the customs union, which might be carried. this is britain staying in the customs union, which would be one of the amendments, and if you're right, take it in that new context. i don't know if an election

can possibly change it. this is where i don't agree that he is like trump. i think he is a tactician on this. using tactics that have run roughshod over the constitution. i think he will do whatever he can get this through. isn't it ironic that we got into this whole brexit situation because of david cameron's fearof ukip. now we are thinking what is the brexit party's now we are thinking what is the brexit pa rty‘s impact now we are thinking what is the brexit party's impact on the vote? maybe it is a tactician again. politics at play for the fundamental future of the united kingdom, and in some ways the eu. what do you think that borisjohnson should not be so keen on the idea of a general election? i'm thinking of precedent of another tory prime minister ted heath that called an election he didn't need to called an election he didn't need to call in the february election of 1974 because his argument was, "i can't govern britain because the trade unions govern it". they said, it is not you, mate.

and the voters didn't choose him. the parallels are very precise, it's not a prediction, but the parallels are there. no prime minister calls an election when they are behind in the polls. heath was ahead in the polls. it went wrong for heath like it did with theresa may when she called an election. there are big risks if borisjohnson gets this general election on the 12th of december. those dark nights, the mood in scotland where he will lose seats, i wonder whether the north of england are quite as keen to swing to the conservatives as some suggest. yeah, there are really big risks. but there hasn't been an early election in modern times that has gone the way of the prime minister who called it. that's not a prediction. maybe this one will. but it it's a big risk. his biggest asset isjeremy

his biggest asset is jeremy corbyn. who polls say is the most unpopular leader of the opposition since polling began. corbyn supporters will say that he was behind and look how well he did against theresa may. of course, he didn't win, but he did better than expected. i think that has changed and there is much less empathy and much less support forjeremy corbyn's party and for him. none of us would be foolish enough to sit around and predict the future, but it certainly doesn't speak well of labour's chances. if they thought they had a chance, they would be jumping for a vote. can i say one counterintuitive thing? everybody seems to be saying, corbyn's proposition on brexit is a, incomprehensible and calamitous vote—loser. stepping back, it seems highly sensible to offer a softer brexit

rather than to remain. some people might disagree, but why is it incomprehensible? he hasn't said which deal or what his own deal might be. look, we don't need to tease out all of the many things. you fluttered it by simplifying it. might ambiguity be helpful in a campaign? the polar opposites are the liberal democrat position, which "we are going to revoke and staying in." this seems to be a very reasonable tactic to try. we can't really not make head nor tail of this. mps... the visible divisions on this.

the risk corbyn runs is that if we are having a referendum, deciding between a new kind of deal which means extending the timeframe of this. generally, the sentiment is that people are saying please let's end this now. i think that could be a real concern for elections. if you go for corbyn, you could be extending it even further. the window on the referendum... i won't say it is not possible. but i think theresa may slammed that shut by saying that brexit means brexit. i think the moment for reaching a consensus has gone. you think it is too late? they could have offered it at several points, but the fact was that mps in the commons have not managed to get enough agreement among them. it seemed to be bubbling

up again a month ago, but theyjust haven't managed to get the numbers. in quebec, we used to call it the "neverendum." we have heard that word here as well. i know you don't do astrology, but a december election? i don't think so, but... i don't think so. i think we could have it. i don't think so. we used to say in this country, when we were trying to encourage people not to buy dogs as pets for children, a dog is for life not just for christmas. i think brexit could be something similar. "let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand", donald trump declared at the white house wednesday, as he trumpeted the "big success" which had followed the abrupt withdrawal of us troops from syria and the subsequent "incursion" by turkey. the success was a ceasefire, though one which may have as much to do with the active presence

of russia as with the absent americans. mina, donald trump seems to be waving goodbye to the middle east. will it be easy to let go? 0bama tried to wave goodbye to the middle east. he didn't get very far. likewise, with donald trump, it has been quite interesting because he had said they are out of syria, but the us secretary of defence has announced that there will be some forces to secure the oil fields in syria. along with the russians, which is an interesting development. i don't think he is going to be disengaging as he pledges. of course, let's not forget there are additional us troops going to saudi arabia after the attacks in the summer. these troops transiting in iraq, on their way home. exactly, we have 2,000 extra troops going into iraq. what donald trump says and what is happening on the ground is not necessarily the same. what is worrying is that america's attitude is that we have nothing left to do with the syria problem. "it is no longer our problem."

russia has been working diligently with the iranians and the turks, and we see them very much with russian patrols in agreement with the turks in northern syria. there is a sense that the americans are not going to get involved, whatever the ultimate, if there is an ultimate solution in syria. that disengagement is happening when there are so many moving parts in the region. you have lebanon on the borders of syria in protest now for over nine days, rejecting many issues in the country such as corruption, but very much the iranian role in supporting hezbollah. 0n the border of syria you have protests in iraq which have so far led to 200 people dying and 800 people wounded. these dynamics don't have any sort of washington approach. there is no clear american policy, even though trump has make clear policy had been maximum pressure and nefarious policy of iran is to be curbed. but we see the syria dynamic.

the people in lebanon and iraq are rising up against this and there is hardly any american support. in syria there is a dynamic where there is going to be aired vacuuming governance, especially with the kurds that have controlled a part of syria and have kind of putting a sort of sense of stability, i don't want to say stability. that's gone now. you have armed troops, lots of weapons, some money sloshing around. it has left an extraordinary vacuum, trump's withdrawal. this is notjust trump. it did begin with 0bama. they are very alike in some ways. i wouldn't rush to say that! they have done similar things in syria. it would infuriate trump supporters to say he is like 0bama.

drawing lines and saying "you cannot cross this line." and then trump actually talking tough on iran and they're calling off the air strike. preferring to use sanctions, you could question whether they have been that effective in either of these scenarios, does he have a kind of all mouth and no trousers? i think he has been consistent in saying he wants to bring america out of these foreign trouble spots, and sometimes, as we've seen in northern syria, is incredibly fast. it really has left a vacuum into which both president putin and iran have enjoyed this, to stretch out and exert their influence. i think america will look back on this, and when we have forgotten the tweets of trump, and think this was a turning point where america stepped right back from the middle east and left it to russia and iran in many ways. one of the potential candidates

for the democrat president is similarly disinterested. that is elizabeth warren. she is apparently an interest in what happens in the middle east. i think this reflects the domestic mood. w e can make fun of trump as much as we want, but he is that trump, if you take this policy back to washington, you are seeing for the first time his most loyal supporters questioning his judgement. that wall of silence as republicans watched in horror. mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham who never speak against trump are now saying this is not good. "this is bad policy."

you combine that with his setbacks and the impeachment, and trump's republican hegemony is now, i wouldn't say in peril, but in question. i wouldn't say so much the withdrawal from syria but the betrayal of the kurds. republicans in congress are saying... "it sets a terrible precedent for america, in terms "of standing by our allies." particularly when you look at the numbers, there was the figure in the economist suggesting that 11,000 kurdish fighters have died in the battle against isis. terrible for the families and the loved ones, but nobody would say that those are comparable. 0nly five americans died in the fight against isis. in addition to that, sorry but to that point, today, the kurds are facing incredible brutality from... the turks are saying that it is not us, but the mercenaries. the turks have to remember that

many of the displaced kurds are fleeing to iraq, where iraq is already under the burden of their own internal turmoil. i think with a curse, though betrayal is not only to the fighters, but the poor families are people who are left with no one to protect them. the difference between 0bama and trump is that 0bama was agonising collaboratively. the difference being that subsequently, 0bama said didn't intervene was the right thing. cameron says it was a disaster with him losing that vote in the commons. the difference now is that... even if the prime minister's majority is loose. the difference is that trump acts unilaterally on his own without collaboration, which has huge implications on british foreign policy.

there were echoes of this with the bush administration because they were willing to go into iraq alone, but blair made the decision to hold them close. i think with trump it is going to be much more difficult for a british prime minister to hold close with quite spontaneous decisions with profound consequences from trump. however much he adoresjohnson, where does that leave britain? if it leaves the european union... we have sort of slightly detached from the us position but have not been explicitly open about it. we have the nato summit starting in london. there is going to be, obviously, a great party. as britain gets to say to trump, or tries to say to him, "what about turkey's role? "what about standing by your allies?" this is where i am very interested in how britain plays its foreign policy in the time of brexit.

is it going to try and stand up to the us about this, or is it going to be too anxious about getting a trade deal? if you can hear the sound of silence, britain has said very little over syria. i agree thatjohnson is far more tactical than trump. there is a counter—intuitive perspective on this from some recent conservative commentators, that putin isjumping in and owning this but what is he owning? i disagree that putin is rushing in. this has been going on since 2011 and they have decades of investment in syria. putin is the most level—headed in dealing with syria

than all those involved. unfortunately, britain's role in the world stage in the last years has not been very large. trump doesn't look to the uk as having influence. how much was that trump being played by the turks or not? japan is playing a role today. he did confer with erdogan before he pulled out. they did confer together. he is conferring with putin very closely as well. that is one of the by—products of brexit. people are waiting to see if they will have the same role, which may be tarnished on the world stage. i think the un security council is so divided, and has become so useless, that it does not play the same role it used to do.

everyone has something better to do than reform it. everyone agrees that it is broken. that's it for dateline london for this week. we're back next week at the same time. goodbye. hello once again. first thing monday morning we could see a widespread frost across the british isles, the first of the season, perhaps, for some. showers from the word go across the north of scotland, still with that distinct northerly breeze about proceedings.

elsewhere it is a glorious start to the day until you come into the south—western quarter. through the day you will be robbed of some sunshine west of the tema and into the —— the isles of scilly and the channel islands. temperatures struggling, eight to 11 should just about covered. in the evening and overnight, not a great deal changes. we begin to see that wind beginning to ease across northern parts of scotland. if showers, perhaps. the start of tuesday again could be a pretty chilly one. the frost not just confined to the heart of scotland. tuesday looks to be a glorious day after that chilly start. not so much on the way of wind across northern parts of scotland. cloud and rain still perilously close to the south—west. 00:28:46,147 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 a high of around 12.