this is bbc news, the headlines the us house of representatives has decided to make future hearings of its impeachment investigation into president trump televised. leading republicans have denounced the proceedings, which are inquiring into allegations that mr trump tried to get the government in ukraine to investigate his political opponents. the authorities in pakistan have blamed an exploding gas cylinder for a fire on a train that killed more than seventy people. officials said the cylinder was being used by passengers cooking breakfast on the karachi—rawalpindi train. the first funerals are expected to take place later on friday. an investigation by bbc news has discovered domestic workers being sold on the black market in kuwait — using apps available on google and apple online stores. the investigation found hundreds of women — including a 16—year—old —

being traded by their employers without their knowledge or consent. now on bbc news, hardalk — stephen sackur talks to campaignerand businesswoman gina miller. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. perhaps inevitably, britain's unresolved brexit agony has led to a general election. the current parliament couldn't find a path out of the morass so the people must now elect a new one. brexit has exposed deep tensions in britain's vaunted system of democracy, raising questions about the relationship between the people, parliament, government and the courts. my guest is businesswoman gina miller, who led two legal challenges to the government's pre—brexit strategy and won both times.

how come this non—politician has had such an impact upon britain's political landscape? gina miller, welcome to hardtalk. lovely to be here. it seems something very important happened to you after thatjune 2016 referendum which saw a majority voting for brexit. you ceased to be just a concerned citizen looking at the politics of britain. you became an activist determined to use the law to make an intervention. what prompted that change? so the idea of becoming an activist injune 2016 is not actually,

there is a background to me which is of activism for the last 30 years but not in the political arena so i've been an activist when it's come to civil rights or in the charity sector and in the investment world where i operate my business. activism is something i've been part of but i've also been very interested in the way our politics has been operating in terms of secondary and primary legislation and powers going all the way back to the tony blair government and look at what happened there. and so i'd been reading hansard, keeping up with debates and actually looking at how something called henry viii powers and secondary legislation had been being used and it was causing me a lot of concern because what we were seeing, or what i was seeing, was a lack of transparency and scrutiny and that actually underlies the majority of my campaigning, is the idea of transparency and scrutiny. so to try to make this as accessible as possible to non— either constitutionalists or lawyers, you, as of that vote, and the government, of course,

it was theresa may at the time, the government's handling of this mandate from the people for brexit, you saw, did you, an overmighty executive? exactly. what i saw was going to happen, because we have this unwritten constitution, very peculiar in the uk for a modern democracy to still have an unwritten constitution, if theresa may as prime minister had bypassed parliament and used her power, this royal prerogative power to trigger article 50... and let us be clear to people not following the ins and outs, article 50 is the mechanism by which the government triggered the process of leaving the european union. so that was a legal requirement, to trigger the beginning of leaving, and mrs may was going to do that bypassing parliament and that would have changed and not just our constitution but actually the powers that sit in with the executive and the prime minister going forward because when you don't have a written constitution, its precedent and procedures that then set what happens next

and so it was very alarming to me that we were going to, in effect, close down parliamentarians‘ voices, close the door of parliament. reading up on your background for this interview, it is striking to me the degree with which you talk about your father, both your father's commitment to the law, he was a barrister in british guyana. and eventually attorney—general, yes. and his instilling in new the notion that, as you lived far away as a child, britain was somehow the model of a sort of much vaunted parliamentary democratic system governed by the rule of law. do you think, now that you reflect on what you've done over these past three years, that somehow you are following your father's values? it's very interesting because through my campaigning, i haven't ended to look back but i've had cause to do so now

and what i realised is how strong that sense is in me, and you're absolutely right because growing up, his view was very much when there was instability in society, in culture, in democracies, in power stakes, the rule of law is the one thing that can create a real sense of stability but also right and wrong and balance and scrutiny. all of these values were something i grew up with and i didn't actually appreciate how much his values and principles were being inflected in the way i live my adult life. all of which really sounds, if i may say so, rather pure and righteous but isn't there another factor which we haven't gotten to yet which is that on the night ofjune 23, 2016, you were personally appalled by the fact that the british people had voted to leave the european union. you said, i think, that you felt sick to your stomach. yes. and that you, never mind all the stuff about values and the law and respect for the constitution or history of the united kingdom, you were just going to do everything you possibly could to stop brexit.

no, that's not correct because unfortunately, where people have been experiencing three, 3.5 years of this chaos we have seen with brexit, my experience of it started in october 2015 because i was one of the people involved in the original remain campaign travelling around the country. i was travelling to most of the areas that eventually voted leave but just travelling the country, talking to people about why we should remain and i was never a hardcore remainer, as some people call it, but i weighed up and balanced... frankly, that makes you pretty ha rd core. what i'm getting at is, you are less the pure constitutionalist and more a deeply committed partisan in this debate. i will get to the point i was going to make which is not partisan and this is the thing. on balance i weighed up and i would talk about why i thought remaining and reforming and being a strong voice was very important to my beliefs and what i thought was the way we should go but actually, in those months and i was going into green

rooms with people on the leave side, i never met anybody who a, thought that leave would win and b, had a plan, who told me how we were actually going to leave so what caused me that sickness in my stomach and the alarm was i was convinced and i still am that at that time, nobody was prepared for a leave vote, nobody on the leave side or politicians were prepared. it was a shock to them that we were going to leave and there was no plan in place or no understanding of the magnitude of the path we were about to take on and that is what alarmed me more than anything else. so here we sit, and as ijust said in the introduction, we are now facing a general election in the united kingdom because the british parliament was simply unable to pass a consensual deal to get us out of the european union, it never happened. when we look at the history of the last three years, how important do you think the two cases that you pursued against the government, the executive, are going to be seen as? do you think they were of lasting

significance or simply of passing significance? no, they are both of lasting significance and for slightly different reasons. the first is that without that case, article 50 would have been triggered against that backdrop of not having a plan and we would have been sent into what i believe, and still a lot of politicians and commentators believe, into a chaotic situation where there is very little understanding that we weren'tjust going to stop and leave but we actually have to reverse 45 years of membership. yeah, but hang on a minute, you won that decision about triggering article 50 but, of course, the government then went through the process the supreme court demanded and got parliamentary approval overwhelmingly for the triggering of article 50 so it didn't make any difference at all. oh, it absolutely did because if we didn't have that process, we wouldn't have preserved our parliamentary sovereignty which was the very thing that the leavers were talking about. parliament is the central core of our democracy and what would have happened is a new precedent

would have been set in the first case that a prime minister and an executive can change our rights without consulting parliament so it preserved parliament's role in our democracy. and briefly if you would, the second case, which of course is much more recent, this september of 2019 in which you essentially argued with your team before the supreme court that borisjohnson had no right to prorogue, to suspend parliament at a crucial juncture in the brexit discussions. he does have the right to prorogue parliament, that sits with the prime minister but it was the intent of doing it in a 5—week period... but i suppose, it made a lot of headlines, you garnered a huge amount of publicity but what difference in practical terms are historic and six—pack historians going to conclude it made? it preserved parliamentary sovereignty and defined the separation of powers because since all the way back to the case of proclamations of 1610, there has been this oversight from the courts when there has been overstep of political on the terrain that actually should be there for the courts or for

the sovereignty of parliament. do you, on reflection, worry about the degree to which your intervention is backed by a very talented and expensive legal team, drag the courts, the judiciary into what is and always has been essentially a political argument about whether britain should be in or out of the european union? let me be very clear — the courts were not treading on the political terrain. they have not been dragged into a political debate. in both my cases, we argued on the black—and—white letter of the law and our constitution and they were very careful in bothjudgements. if you read bothjudgements, they are black and white, they do not mention politics or and do not tell the government or politicians what to do. the fact is, and one could quote you, government ministers, leading commentators in the press, many people saw those decisions taken by the supreme courtjustices

as fundamentally political, whether you like it or not. yes, no, no, and i said to many of those commentators when i met them, "have you read thejudgement?" the majority of them have not. they have decided that's what the courts did. if they read the judgements, they would see, especially the second case, it's a very robustjudgement, it does not make a political stance. but gina miller, this is where politics and the law are not the same thing. no, they're not. and i dare say that the vast majority of people in this country, people who voted in that referendum and the majority of whom feel that their voice deserves to be heard, they won't have read the rulings and the dry legal commentary either, they simply feel, have a very strong feeling, that the courts ended up being a part of a process attempting to thwart brexit. and that's a very dangerous place for the courts to be. well, it is a dangerous place for the courts to be but part of the position for them being there is the way the politicians decided to politicise the case. if you look the day

after in the judgement and actually what the tory particular politicians in were saying, they were the ones who were politicising the case. let me quote you jeremy wright, the attorney—general. he accused you and your legal team of, and i quote, attempting to suit what the will of the british people. and that is the most despicable thing for an attorney—general to do and say because what he said was political and not thejudgement in the case so what the politicians have done, they have propagandised the case, if you like, and made it political. the case on its own wasn't. and i always say to people, if you break the law, do you not think there should be a sanction? listen to the words of lord judge, a former chiefjustice. he was talking notjust about the courts, he was talking about britain's key institutions. he said, "the lesson of history is chilling when citizens, "the public, loses confidence in its own institutions, "their institutions, not ours, they can be beguiled by individuals "or parties, whether of left or right, "that appear to offer them "a route out of what they perceive to be chaos and uncertainty." he was warning about the dangers of populism. if people lose faith

in the core institutions. i would put it to you inadvertently, not because you sought it, but what you did run the risk of robbing those institutions of public confidence. and that's why we were so careful about the way both cases were actually written and the way we argued it. we were very mindful of that and the data, that may be a perception and people may say that but i always look at the data and the polls have shown after both cases that the majority of the public, especially in the prorogation case, the second case, the majority of the public, 56% felt that it was right that boris johnson was held to account by the courts, so it did not do that. what it's done, the trust deficit is not in the courts. the trust deficit is in politicians and it's very important that in that environment where we have got this growing mistrust, that there is a lever of something that brings stability and that, to my mind, is the law.

is there a trust deficit in you, do you think? well, some people don't agree with what i'm doing, they may not understand but as far as i'm aware, there isn't. let me be more specific, and i'm going to quote somebody who you will have no time for but nonetheless i think his view is leading to something quite interesting. it's important that we have different views. brendan o'neill... oh, yes. he is an ardent brexiteer, right—wing commentator. he said this, after the most recent supreme court decisions, "anyone who doubts that the battle over brexit is a clash "between the elites and the people "should behold the figure of gina miller. "no—one," he said, "better sums up the elitist nature "of reactionary efforts to stop brexit "and, by extension, to stop democracy itself than ms miller." he goes on to describe you, really rather unflatteringly, as a filthy rich businesswoman. now, i don't like the language particularly but i am interested in the idea, you used your amazing

connections, network of contacts and wealth to leverage and use your agency through the courts. most people don't have the access that you have, so doesn't that raise questions about the degree to which you were fulfilling britain's democratic values in what you did? my answer to brendan and the question you're asking, if i have worked hard — the idea that is painted is that i found money growing on a tree instead of working for it. and my background has not been easy but i find myself at a place where i have, i do have that privilege. access to a network of professionals and lawyers and i have the money. i am not beholden to others. and in the spirit of transparency, if i may, because we are talking about your role in a political endeavour, how much have you and your associates spent on these various legal fights? there are no associates. it isjust me. from my point of view, my senior counsel were pro bono

and when it comes to the rest of it, it has been hundreds of thousands. hundreds and hundreds of thousands. but that is my money and if i wish to do so, because one thing i have always felt... but isn't that dangerous for democracy? when people with access to that money clearly, by definition have more leverage than those who do not. i wish the system was different and that someone who is concerned does not have to have wealth and can actually exercise their civic voice. that is a deficit of our system and it's something that desperately needs reforming. at the same time, if i have the ability to express on behalf of so many people that there is something wrong with what is happening in our politics, that a prime minister puts themself above the law. let's not forget that. you say you speak for people and you may or may not be right but ultimately you are self appointed. you are not accountable to people.

i am accountable to the courts because if writing up those cases the court felt they did not have merit and that they were not legitimate, i can'tjust turn up in court and bring any old case ifeel like doing. it has to have a strong legal merit. and if they had decided it did not then the case would not have been heard. the cost to you and you have been frank about the high cost of it in monetary terms. the cost has been much greater than money. in the last few months and years, actually, you have suffered a great deal of toxic abuse and it has gone beyond abuse, it has gone to threats. quite alarming and frightening threats. again, reflect with me, what impact has that had on you cumulatively? having been a campaigner, and apparently i was going to destroy the city by myself through my campaigning, i am used to a certain level of abuse. but i never anticipated two things — i admit that i got wrong.

firstly, when i brought the case, the first in particular, i never imagined i would be on my own throughout the process. i presumed if i stepped up, others would join me. you think others were too frightened to join in? i know that. and that is one of the things. when they saw the toxicity of what i was getting they decided it was not the thing to do, to step up. what that meant is that i got all the abuse. and what is so alarming to me and i did not anticipate was the level at which that abuse is targeted at me because i am a woman of colour and because i am supposedly have no right as someone who has come to the uk to have a voice. those are very disturbing things about our society. and while i do reflect and i'm alarmed about them, they have actually meant that i will continue to do these because i don't think those are values that our country stands for. but in doing so you are, by definition, having to accept that not only yourself but your family, you do have children as well,

that they will live in a world where their freedom is compromised. theirfreedom is compromised now. what happens if we move in a direction of our country appears to be going in where they have to hide the colour of their skin? is it worth it...? it is worth it. is it worth it that your children cannot just walk down the street without thinking very carefully about where they are going because of what their mother has done. i have tried to keep them out of it. you don't feel the threat level has reached a point where your whole family has to think carefully. there are threats that they will be taken and killed. i get those on a daily basis. but we don't think they know who they are, at least the police don't think they know. but the threat levels i get is because i am speaking up against things i believe are wrong and i will do that and they understand i will do that to protect the world that they were living in the future. they must never have to hide who they are. your commitment now is turning political because in this general election period you are at

the forefront of a campaign to get the various different parties who advocate remain to strategise, to maximise the impact of remain votes in the coming general election. it is complicated because we're talking about the liberal democrats, nationalist parties in scotland and wales, arguably the labour party although their position is much less clear. but how on earth do you think you will develop a strategy that wins? i did this in 2017. was the first time we had a complex political tactical voting campaign in the uk. we did not before. and i looked around the world and found that in canada they have successfully done it. trudeau's camp did. so i brought over those experts and we did it in 2017. i also ran one in the general election, sorry, in the eu election. it is not easy. it is not an easy thing to do but our aim is quite simple. i have a phrase here. a technique called multilevel regression and post—stratification. can you turn that into english

so you can explain to me how in any given constituency, and britain has 650 of them, you can ensure that the remain... we cannot ensure. what can you do? we look at the marginal seats, there will probably be around 50 or 60 of the 650 where splitting the remain vote will mean in a first past the post system it will be difficult for that candidate to have someone from the remain, one of the remain parties to win. so by tactically voting, or lending their vote to one of the other parties, that first past the post system means that should they get the maximum votes they will be able to win. we've talked about values in respect to democracy. again, you are using a lot of money and sophisticated computer technology to game democracy. we are not gaming it. unfortunately i cannot fix our electoral system but there are many of us who believe

that the first past the post system is not representative enough for us in the uk and hopefully we will get to electoral reform at some stage. but in the system that we have at the moment, it is very difficult. as a country, we keep hearing that we are 52—48. over the last 12 months, 113 polls that we have had have not shown that. they've systematically shown that we are actually over 57% remain country. i don't know... i don't know if those polls truly show 57%. they show the country is divided down the middle. it is divided. there is something more. if we...it is not now no longer theoretical about what our future relationship will be. we now have prime ministerjohnson‘s withdrawal agreement. and it is saying that that is an agreement that will damage us economically from a rights point of view and from an environmental point of view and that is what we fight against.

nothing theoretical any longer. i want to end by returning to the beginning. we spoke about your childhood and your father's influence on you and his vision of britain that played a role in your thoughts about this country. it turns out, it seems to me, that having been active here for so many years, particularly recently in politics, britain is not quite the place you thought it was. and i wonder, particularly in the light of the threats you have mentioned, whether you ever think you do not want to live here anymore? again, quite the opposite. you were quite right. like most people from a commonwealth country, we have a reverent view of britain and i have lived here for over a0 years and i know what an incredible country it is. and i will fight to ensure that we return to being that. because unfortunately in the last few years we have had a drift from a very united tolerant country into one that is very divided. and if i can help get us past this moment in history, back to the great country i think

we are then i will carry on trying to campaign for that. gina miller. we must end there. thank you very much for being on hardtalk. hello. the first few days of november look set to bring some wet and blustery and potentially some stormy weather across some parts of the uk. certainly an unsettled outlook, thanks to an area of low pressure. this is friday's weather chart. you can see the low drifting in from the west. bands of rain, these frontal systems, spiralling around the low. but with that low, we're going to develop a south—westerly flow across the uk, so at least for a time,

it is going to feel milder. a milder start to the day on friday, but with that, we will have outbreaks of rain drifting into eastern england, starting to push northwards across scotland. then a slice of drier and potentially brighter weather before another band of rain pushes into northern ireland, wales and the south—west through the afternoon. it will be breezy, but not especially windy just yet. top temperatures of 9—16 degrees. now, during friday evening, the bands of rain will continue to drift north—eastwards. some dry interludes, but the winds will become an increasing feature across the north and also down towards the south and the south—west. those winds turning really strong and gusty as we get into the first part of saturday morning. now, our area of low pressure as we get into saturday will be deepening. uncertainty about its exact shape and exact position,

but it looks like there'll be a swathe of really strong winds potentially on the southern flank of the low, where you see those white lines, all of those isobars squashing together. so it looks most likely that we'll see strong wind blowing across the southern half of england and parts of wales, also a slice of windy weather across northern scotland, and we'll see bands of wet weather spiralling around. there will equally be some drier and brighter interludes, and in the centre of our area of low pressure, some lighter winds. but around the edges, if you like, to the north and particularly the south, gusty conditions and we could see wind gusts reaching 70 mph or more close to the south coast of england. so some very stormy conditions are possible — worth bearing in mind if you do have plans for saturday. temperatures between 10—12 degrees. now, as we move out of saturday into sunday, low pressure still with us. but not quite as many white lines, not as many isobars by this stage, so the winds will be a little lighter. it will still be breezy and there'll still be some outbreaks of rain. but i think for the second half of the weekend,

at least a better chance of seeing drier weather and some spells of sunshine, and those highs of 11—13 degrees.

this is the briefing. i'm victoria fritz. our top story: donald trump intervenes in the british general election, praising the prime minister and criticising the labour opposition leader. first funerals for the victims of pakistan's train fire. officials say at least 70 people were killed. stubbing it out: austria becomes one of the last european countries to ban smoking in public places. in business, kicking and streaming: the fight comes to netflix as apple tv+ launches in 100 countries, with rivals from disney and hbo not far behind.