ireland, another ireland northern ireland, another ireland and a specially now, seeing snow to relatively low levels on monday. don't get caught out by the ice. on monday, for the showers coming in towards the south and west commentary on hills and in the north and another breezy day. it will be a colder start to next week and then by the end of the week it is turning milder again. this is bbc news. the headlines: as the lunar new year begins, china has launched a massive campaign to try to stop the spread of the virus that has reportedly killed up to 41 people. the virus has also spread to europe. three cases have been confirmed in france. a powerful earthquake has struck eastern turkey, killing at least 14 people and damaging buildings near the epicenter of the tremor. at least 30 people are believed to be trapped under the rubble. the quake was strong enough to be

felt in neighbouring countries. day four of donald trump's impeachment trial in the us senate is wrapping up. democrat prosecutors are arguing the president should be removed from office for abuse of power and for obstructing congress. they say he's used foreign policy for his own personal, political gain. mr trump has dismissed the trial as boring. now on bbc news, it's time for brexitcast.

well, this is nice. i've got some new friends. it's like a new look brexitcast, but only temporarily, and i've got the massivejob of being adam and chris in one. i'm alex, alex forsyth. polcor, political correspondent at the bbc. but i'm not sure i can live up to the adam and chris reputation. you can have your own reputation, alex, you are your own person. that's dangerous, i have a reputation, i'm not sure i want to announce that quite now. more about later. on your left. i am matt chorley, the editor at the times, e—mail, podcast and anything else they get me to do. and sometime standup comedian no less. yeah. you are in charge of the jokes. fine. helen? i'm not sure what i'm in charge of, i'm helen lewes, staff writer at the atlantic. and you are also allowed to tell jokes, by the way, if matt...

if one it creeps out, that's fine. or if matt is not funny. but one of my old good best friends is still with us, but she's in... bologna, yes, i'm in bologna, and i was about to say enough of your new friends already... we are just getting what we can. that's all it is. just taking advantage of it. it's very nice to hear you, and i look forward to hearing you, because bologna is meant to be the proper gastronomic hard—core, if you love italian food, that's the place to go and get stuck in, right? maybe more of that later. i wouldn't know anything about that, laura, nothing at all. it's all news, news only. news only. well, there was news today, wasn't it? news in a bit of a quiet weird way, because the withdrawal bill that we've spent so much time on this programme talking aboutjust has actually become law, finally. blink and you miss it. seriously, all of those years of my life, your life, everyone's life, the wrangling, the pain, agony, the will we ever get there? and it was literally

a blink and you miss it. it's sorted. order, order. royal assent. i have to notify the house in accordance with the royal assent act, 1967, that her majesty has signified her royal assent to the following act. european union withdrawal agreement, act 2020. order, order. and there you go, nigel evans, my goodness, of course arch brexiteer. but not even the speaker. it's such a big deal, it's the deputy speaker who did it. amazing. so what is going through your head, after all those hours and weeks? almost nothing. i didn't actually notice it happening. i saw it later on. i feel like we sort of went through this anticlimax where the mps voted for the first time. it's just happening now. but her majesty has signed it, you know, after everything, helen, what went through your mind, if anything? no, i agree with matt. i think as soon as that election happened it felt like, well, that's it, it's over,

all the formality, and it does feel like a new era. pmq running on time. very strange. short little pmqs as well. it is we are in completely different era, and the next five years are going to be unchartered. i'm not saying that i'm not relieved, because in some ways, all of this endless knife edge tension has been pretty difficult to cover and to try and do the responsible journalism that you need to do. but, you know, the fact that it's now written in law that we cannot ask for an extension puts another great big ticking clock at the end of this year. so there will still be deadlines when we get to the trade deal, but it is such a new era, though. do you feel it's kind of sunk in? because i've had a lot of conversations in westminster this week with people going it must be weird to mp5. "i think i might be a bit bored. what are we going to do?" and itjust strikes me there's not very many people working in westminster involved in politics, and even in brussels as well,

let's talk about that in a second, but have not gotten any memory at all of what it's like either covering or being part of a government that doesn't really have to worry about parliament very much. it's been so long, you may have say the last few years have been weird, but it was way before that. because 2010 was coalition territory, the coalition agreement, it was a fairly stable thing, a majority in coalition. you still had all that wrangling between what was the court, and kind of all of that time, that's a massive period, a decade or more of not really having these in backing majority and before that, the labour government was all over for a while in terms of power wrangling and what will happen next. and ijust think this is like a huge period of adjustment where it's learning how to operate in this new territory. part of it for me just to be like, all right, ok, you know, we can sort of, you know, leave the office before midnight. i can play badminton again on the occasional weekend. do you not i mean? it's like... alex forsyth, badminton? i'm so rubbish, i'm so rubbish. i haven't played in three and a half

years because i've been at work, but that sense of... it's ok, there's lots that we need to do and go around and look at, there will be stories and important policy, but it doesn't have to be like right now today, and we don't know it's going to happen tomorrow. it's variety, though. that's the thing. because i remember the end of last year when i went to look back at the review of the year—type stuff, so much has happened, and yet, nothing had happened. it was constant fever pitch of big votes. but then nothing passed, people resigned, nothing happened. it feels like it was also inconsequential, it was incredibly stressful, i think the entire country became incredibly stressed about it all. and the outcome of the election was just a sort of sense of relief. i think as a journalist, i'm now looking forward to kicking the tyres of a few other bits of public policy, welsh a&e waiting time things come out today, some of the bits of the public realm that are really showing strength, magistrates' court seems to be really on the brink, and actually, all of that stuff has

been crowded out by the news but the latest bit of drama, but actually, i think it's not going to be the honeymoon period for borisjohnson that you would expect from an 80 seat majority, because there are somethings that have not had the tension that they really should've had for years now. we will have to get a bit more proactive because there has to be a natural sense that you are so tied up in reacting to massive events that happen time and time again, and now an opportunity to be really proactive and find out about all of that stuff that we had for a while, that's a pretty good opportunity if you are looking at it from that perspective. do you think anyone in the continental part of europe has actually noticed? don't forget, there are formalities to come here as well. the european parliament now has to ratify the brexit deal now that our parliament has done that. so that's going to happen on wednesday. meps are gearing up towards that. but, of course, this is also a smug moment for michel barnier, because this is where he says to everybody, you charged me with getting an orderly withdrawal of the united kingdom, just imagine if we were heading into was a no—deal brexit.

actually, you know, no one is going to really noticed much difference after brexit, because you are in this sort of standstill transition agreement the next day, so he is sort of patting himself on the back. are you suggesting that sometimes politicians might be smug? by the way just to be clear, there is no one. none of that at all. none of that smug. none of that posturing or daft ideas, none of that going on. i think on the other side, you know, the eu was very aware that even though it also wanted to get on with it, you know, if the uk was going, itjust wanted it to go already. you know, the theme is not going to go away from the eu. so you know, brexit is not going to overshadow eu business to the same extent after it actually happened, but this trade deal is going to be a big deal. so, even though eu types like to say to now, look, china is a much bigger deal, for example, yes, you know, russia and iran and everything, but then the trade deal is a big dealfor the eu, and because of that time ticking away again, as it will be to the end

of december, and you know, it will be a big focus for the eu for the whole of this year. i suppose, though, you know, there is just a little bit of sigh, next week, there will be some ceremony of the flag going up and british meps packing their boxes and coming back for the last time. but as katya was suggesting, the next bit is not going to be straightforward at all. you know, one of team barnier was in london this week, stefaan de rynck, who ha rd—core brexitcasters will know is a critical part of barnier‘s team, some of whom listen to this podcast. he was in london this week saying the next bit is going to be more complicated but also, coming outwith... because it is brexit, some new, very, very helpful metaphors. last week...

oh, god, food—related metaphors and brexit! i know. please make them stop if nothing else! come on, people! we started with cake and now we're onto salami or ravioli. i am all over ravioli, because... ravioli from bologna. you have ravioli? i got it straight for you and only the best will do, laura. this is packaged supermarket ravioli, straight from the airport supermarket, so only glamour here on brexitcast. is it fresh or is it tinned? it's got to be fresh. individually wrapped ravioli. but you know if you go to super posh restaurants... ravioli is individual bits of filled pasta. you get one massive bit of ravioli, don't you? that is what happened to me only today. or loads of little ones if you go to slightly lower class restau ra nts. that's a ravio. .. a raviolo. i was lunching with chris mason. what?

and a cabinet minister, and we went to a restaurant and there was raviolo on the menu. the minister did not know what it was. when it came, it is basically a massive, one single big parcel. that is the posh ravioli. yes, which is what they are talking about here. actually... this is what the eu wants, they want raviolo and not ravioli, so... what does that mean, though? that was the pasta metaphor he was using. he's basically saying, so the uk... remember, we have been talking about this the last couple of brexitcasts, the idea that the uk was saying, "ok, we have got a short timetable but what we will do is we will rack up some wins". you know, "we will make an agreement over security, we will make an agreement over financial services," the uk hopes. "we will knock off all these agreements as we go along." the eu's saying, "no, we've got this ambitious political declaration. we wanted a fully comprehensive trade deal. we are going to pack all of that, you know, content into our raviolo, and, you know, coat it with a little bit of sort of pasta around the edges, but we want to stuff it

all in that one bag, not have lots of little ravioli." that's it! laughter this is absolutely exhilarating and marvellous, because we can't see your ravioli. if you're watching on telly, you are lucky, brexitcasters, you can see the ravioli katya is talking about. we can't see it in the studio here which is a terrible disappointment. katya, i think we're going to let you go. ciao, bella. ciao, bye—bye. what she is not going to find out is this other very important fact, i checked with stefaan de rynck... he said he did not use the word ravioli. he has been misquoted! all he said was, i prefer this kind of pastor where everything is integrated as a main course. this is

another important fact. as we always say, this is a serious subject. does not mean you have to take yourself seriously. i asked what his favourite type of ravioli was and he said truffle or ricotta and spinacio, so there you go. that is the joy of being an unelected official is you can say truffle, whereas every other politician would have to say plain red. plain tomato sauce and nothing else. but to make a serious point... i mean, the eu has been clear now, even though ursula von der leyen, the commission president, was talking about priorities and giving the impression there could be this phased approach, we know behind closed doors that there are lots and lots of conversations in cabinet and government at the moment about what their mandate, what they will set out. so what are you hearing, helen, about what they will set out when they do...? we expect that quite soon, don't we? i think the fascinating one, and i mean, this is not a hipster choice at all, is fisheries, right? because uk waters account for, what, 42% of eu catches.

and although it is a small industry, about 180,000 people across europe, i think, it is nonetheless kind of totemic in terms of who gets leverage over who. norway, which has got a looser arrangement with the eu, negotiates its fishing quotas every year and i think that is what britain wants as well but that is a big chip for europe to give away. definitely. you think about those early battles in the last stage of the negotiation about the timetable and how important that proved to be at the end of the process. so all of this early positioning is absolutely crucial and i think that is why we are hearing messages from government about the direction of travel they are going to go

down, like we have heard from the chancellor, who has been in davos, talking about their expectation of how closely tied to eu rules the uk is prepared to be as we get further down the line. it is interesting because at the weekend, i think sajid javid, it's fair to say, put the willies up some businesses. actually, i really should not have said that, should i? tell me more. what an elegant turn of phrase! cat amongst the pigeons. yes, thank you very much, matt. when he said, "we are going to diverge". now, the question of divergence, of course, is how different will things be? business, as we know, we've talked a lot about it a lot over the years, are really worried about how much they will have to change if they want to keep selling into the european union. he was talking today and basically saying we do want things to be different. the disruption has to be worth it, i suppose, and that is the way they are going. matt, what are you hearing? i think you're right. there was a definite shift in the sajid javid language. he said, "we'll maintain high standards not because we're told to, but because we want to". and it's shifting to...

"nothing's going to change, we're just choosing that nothing has changed as an independent sovereign country", and that is a big shift. for people who think britain will be radically different next year, they'll be disappointed. the fact that we are personally opting back into everything again as an independent country, they will try to sell that as a win. this will be a central question in a lot of talks as we go forward. "we won'tjust do it for the sake of it", but from a political point of view, i was talking to someone who admitted openly, if privately, that economically, fishing is a tiny part of the economy. but politically, it's like a giant, big totem and if borisjohnson can't say, "look, we've taken control back of our waters and by this time in two years' time, we'll catch more fish", that will drive people round the twist. and you have to think back to the broader picture about where they won the election. some fishing communities who had

a labour tradition may have voted for the conservatives because of the brexit argument. and if they view themselves as being sold out... borisjohnson was waving his fish in grimsby with a week or so to go before polling day. where were you when boris johnson waved his fish? i stunk for a week, honestly. but he loved the fish. and the fishermen loved him. did he kiss it? he didn't. was that when he started saying, "let slip the cod of war" and did a shakespearean riff? while talking about not just doing things for the sake of it,

but this is dealing with people who are obsessed with big ben bonging. doing things for the sake of it is quite a lot of the case for doing this. well, i suppose they are proving politically that you have done something. you could argue that many have argued that the heart of the referendum was about the sovereign aspect, perhaps not expressed in those terms, but the sense that we can do what we want as a country, that speaks to a lot of people who voted to leave. it will be part of what evolves, as is also happens with the opposition. did you see what i did there?” is also happens with the opposition. did you see what i did there? i feel like i'm learning from the master! this week, as last week, if you are watching or listening last week, we talked to keir starmer, who is one of the front runners in the labour leadership race. but so is rebecca long—bailey. we sat down with her yesterday to talk about the election, she thought about brexit, how she wanted to be leader. like most people in this race, there's this consensus that our brexit policy was a bit confusing, it was a bit tricky to expand to people and

it was part of the problem. but it was really striking to me how much he wanted to stick with what has been said. she kept using the word aspiration, which is a very... when you have had a huge defeat, it is weird to have people talking like that. do you think, helen, because you follow this really closely come of their company what actually happened in this race?|j of their company what actually happened in this race? i don't think she was. she started off the campaign by writing an article for the guardian which was very vague in its platitudes and wrote something for tribune, because there are people for whom guardian is not left wing enough. she says, i improperly

corbyn here. it feels like she is trained to be the inheritor of the mantle. she knows there's a huge constituency who basically want more jeremy corbyn. there was a poll of the members asking who is the best labour leader, and it wasjeremy corbyn. last was tony blair. do you wa nt corbyn. last was tony blair. do you want three election victories? it turns out they want the crushing defeat. she is also showing a bit more of who she is. shall we listen to what she had to say? do you consider yourself to have any tory friends? i'm sure i have. i mean, i've got a group of friends who are not political. we don't talk about politics because you don't talk about politics with your nonpolitical friends and i bet they've not voted labour all their lives, they've probably voted for all sorts of people. but i don't know. they wouldn't tell me if they did because they'd be angry.

and do you think that's right? do you have any tory friends in parliament? not really, no. but i'm friendly to everyone. you're putting yourself forward as labour leader, but also as a potential prime minister. how do you think you would handle that? you said, like millions of us, one of your favourite things to do on a friday night is get a takeaway and sit down with the family. can you imagine doing that in number ten? no one gets in the way of my netflix and chinese takeaway on a friday night. apparently, i wasn't exciting enough in saying that. i don't know if they expect me to start paragliding on a friday night, but when you have a seven—year—old boy and all you want to do is chill out in your pyjamas and watch netflix and have a chinese, that's good enough for me. it's the "netflix and ch..." you think she's going to say chill, but it's chinese. have you ever been paragliding on a friday night? not on any day of the night, although i quite like a chinese. i thought the whole thing...

as a performance, that was more assured. the message was strange, but it speaks to the problem of this campaign, is that they have gone straight into trying to win over the people who twice chose someone who lost the election. they haven't come to terms with the fact that there is all sorts of talk over who can win over tory voters. they are not trying to do that. they're trying to win over corbyn voters. it's like there are two phases, when you talk to the party and talk to the electorate, and it's who can marry the two. jess phillips pulled out because she was thinking, "i can't get past the gate of the labour movement before i talk to the country". it's who can do both sides and it feels like some of the candidates are getting to the party bit first, because they have to. that's how the race works. i'm going to be unfair and ask not alex, but the two of our special guest brexitcasters who they think is going to win. i'm going to go with the consensus choice of keir starmer. mind you, last time i went with yvette cooper. so don't listen to helen if you're having a bet. matt? all the evidence suggests steer...keir starmer. steer karma!

sounds like an american film star, steer karma. he's not the most interesting man. he's not overly interesting. lisa nandy has been more interesting and is trying to liven up what is otherwise quite a dull campaign. whether or not there's enough time for her, i don't know. we almost don't have enough time, but i can't help but ask you, you go for your lunches with chris mason. this is a practice in westminster. in the awful, cosy club we're always accused of being, people have lunch partners, which means you can nobble a politician two at a time, so to speak. what is chris like having lunch? that and willies, i tell you...! it's a new era. matt, you go for lunch with chris mason. what's he like? the one thing which is guaranteed is that chris

will always have a pudding. and i can always tell which pudding it's going to be. it was poached pears today. it's quite often a crumble. if there's anything on the menu which mentions yorkshire, he'll always have that. of course. quite often, the minister leaves, as they did today, and chris and i satand had a pudding and a nice chat afterwards. how does he have time for pudding? i don't know, he does about 20 jobs now on the bbc. i know. that's better than him leaving his unpeeled, half—eaten carrots around the newsroom, so i'll tell him off even more about that. he really does do that. and not just carrots. you could bring them in peeled. don't leave them on the desk. if he has had a pudding at lunchtime... he doesn't need them! he's in big trouble when he's back next week.

we'll be live at the radio theatre in london, which is very exciting, for an eve of brexit day special brexitcast show. so if you can come along to that, marvellous, and if not, it will be on the telly as usual, but that's all we have time for tonight. but it's been lovely having you guys. helen and matt, thank you so very much indeed. that's goodbye. goodbye. brexitcast. .. brexitcast... from the bbc. hello. high pressure may well have kept much of the uk dry for the past week, but for the second half of the week, it's kept much of the uk cloudy, misty and murky. it's all set to change, though, but that change will come first with a spell of rain, spreading east across the uk on sunday, then after that, colder, brighter, but showery and some wintry showers and places as well.

so here is what is happening. higher pressure is on the way out during saturday. by sunday, this weather front sweeps east with rain, and it's behind that we pick up the breeze, bring back some sunshine, but bring showers in that will give some snow in places, and particularly sunday night into monday morning, as we will see in a moment. but for the start of the weekend, for saturday morning, on the chilly side towards the far south of england, maybe a hint of frost in the colder spots, but mostly frost free, plenty of cloud, drizzly misty, murky in places. something a bit brighter that migrates northward across england and wales during the day, but even behind that, thicker cloud comes back with some patchy rain and drizzle. could see a bit of that towards parts of northern ireland and certainly into scotland, especially in the west. quite windy towards northwest scotland, rain turning more persistent in the western isles to end the day, and that is the weather front we saw earlier. this is the rain from it, pushing into northern ireland overnight and into western scotland as well.

another frost free start to the day on sunday. so, sunday, then, is all about the rain moving east, but also the change to colder conditions behind. a marked change in colour here showing up. that's the colder air moving in. and it's within that there will be brighter skies for early next week, but also these showers and a chance of seeing some snow showers in places. so, as we go on through sunday, we will see that rain pushing east to all areas, clearing quite quickly from northern ireland, later in the day reaching the far southeast of england. it may brighten up a bit to its western parts of england and wales, but the best of the sunshine on sunday will be in northern ireland and scotland, although there may be the odd shower following in behind. take a look at the temperatures, a much colder feel to things once that rain has moved on through. a windier day across the board as well. rain clears the southeast on sunday night, but then this next system comes in overnight and into monday morning, and there is a chance that

that northern ireland, northern england, especially scotland seeing snow to relatively low levels early on. icy in places that don't get caught out by that. on monday, the snow is coming in towards the south and west, wintry on hills in the north and another breezy day. it will be a colder start to next week, but then by the end of the week, turning milder again.

welcome to bbc world news. our top stories. china confirms another 15 deaths from the respiratory coronavirus is the first cases in europe are confirmed. at least 18 people are dead after a powerful earthquake strikes eastern turkey. search for survivors continues. democrats in the us are wrapping up their opening arguments on the president trump impeachment trial as his lawyers await their turn. and the massive swarms of desert locusts threatening the food supply in east africa. if you consider that hundreds of millions of them are flying at the same time, the amount of destruction they can cause is unimaginable.