to dateline london. i'm shaun ley. is spain's prime minister still in charge of catalonia? is britain's prime minister still in charge even of her own party? and will the mass shootings in las vegas dent american confidence in the right to bear arms? joining me today are alex deane, london correspondent of madrid's la razon, celia maza de pablo, the belgian writer and broadcaster, marc roche of le point, and the american writer and broadcaster, jef mcallister, former london bureau chief of time magazine. warm welcome to you all. it is good to have you here and it will be a busy programme. the "f" off the conservative party conference stage set, which fell down during theresa may's leader's speech, seemed horribly prescient in a week which ended with calls for her to quit. by contrast, the annual meetings of party activists and corporate sponsors for the labour and liberal democrat opposition parties passed without much controversy. alex, things had seemed to have settled down for theresa may a little bit in the run—up to conference, consensus that she was going to stay until at least brexit. after this week, what has happened to those prospects? i think that consensus still holds. there was undoubtedly — i put it in the past tense — an attempt by some members of the parliamentary party to question the leadership. it really has fizzled remarkably quickly. apart from anything else, it's a demonstration of the quality of the whips operation, that they... the people who control business in parliament, who used to be more neutral, they are now enforcers for the occupant of number ten. enforce they haven't done very well. to be clear, this attempted putsch was run by a guy called grant shapps. if you were picking the opponents you were going to face as a prime minister in the conservative party, that is who you would pick. i am sure he has qualities. other qualities. but having a following in the tory party isn't one of them. is that a reflection of the fact that people who share the views who are perhaps more senior don't really have the guts to strike the blow? no, i think there is genuine support for theresa may to see out the brexit process. that is two years away. anyone making political predictions after two years is daydreaming. she predicted she would fight the next general election in 2022. i think every leader should make that prediction because as soon as you saw with tony blair and david cameron, as soon as you give a time limit to your time in office, you fatally undermine your ability to perform. what did you make about the week's events? i made a joke about the sign falling off. that wasn't the worst bit. the worst was a comedian offering a p45, sacking by your employer, saying it had come from borisjohnson, her foreign secretary, who had kept a low profile and support for the prime minister and then the poor prime minister was struggling with such a terrible cold that it completely distracted. i feel very sorry for theresa may and i think the public do but as a leader you don't want them to feel sorry for you, you want respect and authority. theresa may does not have those qualities right now. in normal circumstances... but these are not normal circumstances. we have brexit and that is very important. i think that... the tory party is completely split right now but they don't have a clear leader to replace theresa may and they are very aware they have a deadline with brexit. on the brexit question, this is increasingly important. we are coming up to a meeting of the heads of government. we had hoped in government that there may be the chance to speak about the post brexit relationship. how do you think what happened this week will have been looked upon? they will have been watching. it is a disaster. she likes the political clout to clinch a deal. for europeans, it is astonishing. they still don't know what the british position is. the british want to discuss the future, which is trade, without discussing about the past, which is unheard of in multinational negotiation. the past being you have to settle the northern ireland... the eu citizens, and you have to settle the money owed. the problem for the british is that the position is hardening, for the british government. on the continent with the german confederation of industry, they have talked which you have seen with emmanuel macron, who has opposed trade being discussed without first discussion of the previous three things. and also, your friend, the president of the united states, is opposing the only deal which has been done at the moment on brexit and trade. it is astonishing that britain are completely isolated. hang on... what you say about trade is not true. in all trade negotiations, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. if you find something hard, move around. the reverse is actually the case. the europeans are currently saying, we cannot talk about our future engagement until we have reached a position on the settlement for the so—called divorce. well, of course, pragmatically, britain's attitude on that divorce will be influenced by the settlement for the future. no, absolutely not. first you have to do settle your bills. give me any example of when that has happened. ever. no, no. because you are demanding, the one getting out. you have to settle your bill first and then we discuss trades. give me one example, ever. any example. any trading initiation ever. what i am getting here, it a sort of recreation of the barnier—davis conversations that have been happening! let's bring you in. you can't all talk at once or nobody will hear anything. marc claimed that things are always settled first. i said name one example. and you can't. but when you say always, you mean never. 0k. the biggest of them all. if i can try to unite both parts of this conversation, the ups and downs of theresa may this week are interesting or not but what is fundamental is that brexit is still the third rail or the main thing in the british conservative party and british politics and there is no obvious good solution. the fact it is a multilateral negotiation with 27 countries which have the veto and britain is weak and divided and even in the conservative party, it isn't clear how... hold on a second. at the conference, you were there, i only read about it, i understand that jacob rees mogg was the kind of heart—throb of the fringe meetings. distinctive. 19th—century dress, against gay marriage, against abortion in all circumstances, and likened brexit to waterloo, and the battle of agincourt, and all these emotional ideas of british greatness, rather than this tough, complicated problem that britain is bringing on itself, where the economy is now growing... together. every party has conference darlings and that shouldn't distract you from the main point. where you are right — this demonstrates how wrong it would be to change leadership right now in the difficult circumstances. wrong to suggest britain is weak. can't find people! useless in brussels! useless country? you want to get out and don't know how to get out! we had two peifer you! —— we had two talk for you! talking about an entire country? some would call that racism. the other conferences... i don't know? what does that mean? he just called me racist! i said you are a useless country on brexit! the other conferences... the labour party? the conservatives are so useless. better to get a deal on brexit. democrats said vote for him. regarding the labour party, i thinkjeremy corbyn is in a very easy position right now. but if we finally see jeremy corbyn as prime minister, who knows? one thing is clear, over the last two years, in british politics anything could happen. we will have the same problem, a party completely split and without any connection. it is worth remembering most of the members of parliament, labour, support remain. but in the brexit referendum we see a lot of labour supporters support brexit. if finally we are going to see the labour party, it is going to have the same situation. alex, it would be naive of brussels to think things would be any different with a change of government? jeremy corbyn before he became leader was a profound eurosceptic. brussels, an arrangement done with an arrangement for the banks. but they did have a better conference. they had an upbeat conference full of young people with a party, festival atmosphere, but it seemed a bit more based around a personality platform around their leader rather than the genuine policies, platform of government, and it is when they put those forward, they start to run the gauntlet of credibility. i think the support ofjeremy corbyn as a rock star is just an illusion. i think he has the full support of the party. it doesn't matter who it is for brussels. the british have been useless. we have lost 18 months to bickering and we don't know what they want, until we know what they want, we can't go further forward. you read the papers that came from david davis? we will move on. of course. on tuesday, the regional parliament in catalonia will meet and perhaps declare itself the parliament of a nation. spain's constitutional court says all such moves are unlawful, spain's government threatens to impose direct rule. violence marred last sunday's independence referendum, with a big ‘yes' vote but a disputed mandate. celia, is it clear after the events of the last few days if anyone is in charge? let me say that i am deeply worried and sad about what is happening in my country. obviously, the pictures are horrendous and for the parties, it's easy to say to the international community, look what happened when we went to vote, but i think it's worth remembering the whole picture. and the whole picture is that we have parties who want to declare unilaterally the independence of catalonia against spanish law, against catalonian law, because the referendum was illegal. but the most important thing, against the will of the majority of the catalan people, because we have to remember these... these are parties who won just 40% in the last catalan elections in 2015. is that why the prime minister has suggested perhaps another election is needed in catalonia? if we have another regional election in catalonia and a different result, it would be very clear, but at that point, what is the fact is that the parties had just 48% in the last regional election and they want to unilaterally declare independence. finally, if next week, the president of catalonia is going to declare, though i doubt that will happen, because the parties are split right now, the tension will escalate. so obviously we have a problem right here. we need to fix it but under a legal framework. alex, there is a difference in how this has developed against the campaign for independence in scotland and the relationship between the central government and the regional government. i appreciate britain doesn't have a written constitution which has perhaps made things easier. we were quite self—critical about the way we conducted our referendum. the language of politics became quite rude and harsh. retrospectively, i think we can actually be quite proud of it compared to spain. it may not be right, celia, that the referendum was lawful... or unlawful. it wasn't, it was illegal. may or may not be true, parties granted a majority. but it is unquestionably right that the spanish national government has behaved appallingly in battering its own citizens away from an election and in seizing ballot boxes. if they wanted to say this was without credibility and should be dismissed, say that, ignore it, don't send in policeman to beat citizens and have fireman. this either has no credibility and it doesn't matter or it's so important that we have to stop it? i want to be clear about this point. i condemn the violence, but if we talk about the violence, and i don't want to focus on the violence, i want to focus on the politics and democracy. what's happened has happened. you can't take it back. the violence is around catalonia and that is very sad, because if we talk about violence we talk about violence with the police as well and we talk about violence from radical separatist groups against the families of those who support spain. why? i think it is terrible because as far as europe is concerned, we can't do anything, squeezed between quite in transition parties, in transition government with the flemish and lombardi going their own way, because like catalonia they are fed up of paying for a poorer part. the only solution, and for once i agree with you, is a scottish type of referendum. but... let me finish, because a scottish type of referendum, the moderate had the upper hand, saying that at the end of the day, independence will be a disaster. how else do you determine self—determination? it is only because catalonia will be out of the eu and they have to reapply. like scotland. i think we all have a very strong interest in this. it's important. europe spilled a lot of blood in the last century focusing on nationalism and micro nationalism, my rights and my laws versus youi's. it has to be an oozing political process, where maybe now the shock of the violence will make the central government retreat and the shock of the violence will make the separatist movements think, maybe we can figure out a way to have a federal system that gives us 98% and that's good enough? i think for the structure of europe, we don't want another european country focusing inward on its own and its own problems again. we need to think about problems. but it's notjust the europeans. everyone remembers lincoln suspended corpus. they tend to forget what he did. he tried to suspend voting in maryland. we are still paying the price of the yugoslav dismemberment, of the ussr dismemberment. i think it is very important to say that the catalan issue is completely different to the scottish situation, so please don't compare them, because they are completely different. but isn't that because politicians have made them different, not because the instinct is any different? in scotland, we saw a legal referendum. let me continue. in catalan, we have an illegal one. is that because it is not possible to have a legal one? i'm not being provocative, i am just asking! no, it's fine! if we have this situation... maybe we have time to look up the constitution and if we have to change the constitution, we have to talk about this, but in the legal frame again. ok, it is not possible that against the will of the majority of the catalan people want to declare independence. right now, we have very important companies and banks moving their headquarters out of the catalan region to other places in spain. obviously, we have a problem to fix, but the problem has to be fixed in the legal framework. but like in scotland, after the referendum, there was a deal to give more autonomy, fiscal and economic. it worked perfectly well. and the basque region already has greater autonomy. there is a model in the spanish for that kind of thing. i don't understand the need to stress so much whether or not this is legitimate under the current constitution, because it seems it can never be legitimate for the region to seek self—determination and that can't be right in democracy. more to the point, if it is against the will of the majority, why are you afraid of the referendum? the majority would vote no. good question. i think this is relevant as well. we have discussed so many figures from the catalan government because that was an illegal referendum, 90% of the support, 43% turnout, i think we should take that figure with a pinch of salt. it might have been higher if people weren't turned away and beaten. let's discuss it in a legal way, legal frame, not in this way. can i ask how much you think this is unfinished business from the establishment of a democratic spain? because one of the things we associate with general franco's time from the sos—70s is that he suppressed separate identity because he was worried about spain breaking up. is this still the legacy of the unfinished business of that or it is entirely unconnected with that? well, obviously the history is history and without that, we couldn't understand what happened in catalonia, what happened in the world, ok? but i think one of the greatest things spain is that diversity. 0k? and obviously catalonia is a great region of spain. if people are not happy with the current situation, maybe it's time for a debate, but again, in the central parliament, in the parliament of catalonia as well but in a legal framework. you need to change the constitution. but in a legal framework. but if the government don't want to do anything... or the king, what can they do? poor catalan. now, it's a measure of how frequent multiple gun murders in the united states are in the headlines that many people were more shocked by the number of injuries than by the number of dead. the one—man carnage wreaked by stephen paddock from his hotel room high above the country music concert crowd took at least 58 lives, many among those being treated have life—threatening wounds. more than 500 were injured because paddock had altered his weapon. tell us about the bump stock and why this could potentially be a catalyst for change? a bump stock. . i didn't know until this week, too. it is a kind of home—grown device you can get from the internet for $100 that allows you to use the recoiling of of the gun to essentially automate the trigger pull so that it can go very fast. it makes a semiautomatic weapon into a kind of automatic weapon, a machine gun. wow. isn't it fantastic what technology can accomplish? now, the national rifle association, in all of these previous mass killings, it tends to go to ground for a little while and they say, oh, we are sorry, let's pray for the victims and their families, it's terrible that there are bad people in the world, mental illness is terrible, and then they don't change anything. now their concession is that they are going to regulate bump stocks. as if anyone really cares! already 740. .. many do care. i'm sorry, of course i do desperately care that that tiny addition to those thousands of weapons is reduced, but there are many other things you can buy to make your guns more lethal too. the legislation the nra was pushing last week was to make silencers easier to buy. that will probably go off the boil for a little while because the mechanism is always to do more and to make guns more available. there are now over 250 million guns in the united states with a population of 300 million. the murder rate by gun is 25 times higher than the average of any other industrialised country. 740 mass killings already this year, more than four killed at one time. it just doesn't. .. it has become part of the background noise, death by gun, in america. i have a badge from the national rifle association when i was in summer camp at age 11 and i was taught to shoot a rifle safely. then it was a rifle shooting association. now it has become a very lucrative, very powerful lobby. the way the country is split up... most blue states want regulation. most red states wouldn't like to have more regulation, most blue states would. the nation is in red states that it is the frontier, you need a gun to protect yourself. in blue states, big cities, nobody really wants to do it, but you can't get the regulation. we are still having gun murders all the time, 13,000 a year, seven children a day, and you don't see much room pushing for effective regulation because most people have given up already. in australia after tremendous gun violence, in england after dunblane, effective regulation came into into force, but americans don't really know that or think it applies to our system. well, john howard in australia, the example after the port howard massacre. . . a conservative prime minister, took away the right to bear arms in anything like your sense. we still have farmers with shotguns. then he fought an election. that was an exceptionally brave piece of leadership. that is what they need in the united states. the answer is to amend the constitution. it is a constitutional issue, in the end, and if you wish to have these things interpreted differently by your courts and in law, you amend the constitution. i would actually argue that the current interpretation of the constitution by 5—4 decision is incorrect. i am a lawyer. i would say the minority had the better end of the arguments with the regulation. this is not militia, this is not muskets in the 18th century. it's a cultural thing. you are absolutely right. either you have a change in the supreme court and they vote it out and people will say black helicopters are going to come and take away my guns... it has got to be cultural and political. it is a 50 year problem, if that. americans love guns. the crime is high and hollywood is making lots of money with its movies on guns and all that. actually, most americans don't own guns. it's a quite small minority that own a lot of guns. but it is for them, very, very important. do you think aside from the bump stock and whether or not that gets banned, this terrible tragedy on top of many others will have an effect? no, i don't see any dynamic that can really change it. it's been this way for a long time. it is actually getting worse. more people are getting killed in the mass shootings and the technology is getting better. people learn from it. all the tricks he used to keep the police away, cameras, to have two shooting points in the hotel... people will read about that and the next guy will do even better. so you think this is a debate about stopping guns to be automatic, is the answer? it is a small change, it might help a little, but i don't think it will make a fundamental difference. thank you so much for very lively and informed debate, for keeping us up to date on dateline. that's all we have time for this week. dojoin us again at the same time next week. from me, shaun ley, and all of us, goodbye. sunday will be similar to saturday. if it is good, it is very good. on other occasions, in other locations, pretty murky fare. a lot of cloud across the british isles. a lot of cloud around. overnight showers in the north—east of scotland gradually fading. a weather front to the south—west. showers coming in through northern ireland to the north of wales, merseyside, perhaps greater manchester. getting down to the north midlands as well. generally speaking, sunny spells in the afternoon and a high of 18. winds coming in from the west and south—west. a lot of cloud around. brighter interludes. patches of cloud beginner or the odd spot of rain. a high of 16 or 17. —— cloud. hello and welcome to bbc news. hurricane nate has made landfall in the us state of louisiana, close to the mouth of the mississippi river. it's already caused major damage to several central american countries leaving at least 25 people dead. the un secretary general, antonio guterres is currently touring the caribbean to see the damage for himself. he spoke to my colleague alpa patel and said he's increasingly concerned by global warming and its effect on the weather. well, it is horrible to see a paradise island like barbuda turned into hell. 95% of the houses have been destroyed. total devastation.