alex spoke to john tong professor of british and irish politics at the university of john welcome back to the. pleasure. some people because it surprised by the the vehemence both the democratic unionist party state the position of the. last week in this program last week or even nigel dog in the in the commons with the prime minister on monday what lies behind strong statement of position. i don't think we should be surprised that the u.p.a. has always been an anti european union party and that the u.p.a. is always believe that northern ireland must be an integral part of the united kingdom in constitutional and economic terms of course that the pisa ports divergence in other respects on issues like same sex marriage and abortion but in constitutional terms that the u.p.a. fears that anything that aligns northern ireland more closely with the e.u. and in this case the republic of ireland given what's proposed in respect to the border that's the slippery slope to united ireland than the d u p as the hard line eunice party that it is will not countenance anything like that despite the f

so it certainly isn't going to happen in the short and medium terms if it ever happens professor john tong thank you very much indeed my pleasure. in the run up to last christmas to resume a thought she had clocked the first phase of the blacks at the girl she actions only pulled up short by a flag of convenience friends in the d. you be in the said that she ignored the vase for them blacks are said to david davis by keeping our allies out of the loop until the very last minute the ghost of christmas past let the prime minister off of a humiliating delivery a warning and some big u.s. words on the backstop. it seems unlikely that the ghost of christmas present will let off so lightly the images presented to the prime minister for this winter are not appealing there is no commons majority for the checkers fudge or anything that resembles that the only way to avoid the unpalatable choice between an eye this border and an eye they see barbara is to stand the single market and the customs union ironically the may be a parliamentary majority for the us but it would split the conservative party

tonight, a former supreme court justice, john paul stevens, says kavanaugh's testimony before the senate should disqualify him from serve tong nation's highest court. let's bring in our analysts and talk about what former justice john paul stevens told a group in boca raton, florida. listen to this. >> at that time, i thought he had the qualifications to sit on the supreme court and should be confirmed if he was ever selected. but i changed my view for for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability or record as a federal judge. he's a fine federal judge and he should have been confirmed when he was a nominee but i think his performance during the hearings caused me to change my mind. >> what do you think? >> a lot of people speculated that he might have to recuse himself from a number of cases that would have some partisan connotation. he was very, very clear that he was anti-the democrats who were against him. he was talking about himself as somebody who was the victim of this siege because preweng because of the clintons. you had this feeling he may not be able to be the non-partisan diplomatic objective