Now on bbc news, it is time for dateline london. Hello and welcome to the programme that brings together some of the uks leading columnists with the Foreign Correspondents who file stories for the folks back home with the dateline london. This week, indias Prime Minister, narendra modi, ends autonomy for kashmir to free it from being terrorised by violence, but could it make that problem worse . And youve probably heard of fantasy football. Is the weeks chatter in the uk about a general election and a government of National Unity fantasy politics . With me are. Tim stanley, a leader writer on the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Michael goldfarb, the us broadcaster who presents the podcast the first rough draft of history. Ashis ray, whos been a Foreign Correspondent since 1977, including with the times of india. Nesrine malik, a sudanese born writer whos a columnist for the guardian newspaper. A warm welcome to all of you. Donald trump has offered his services as a mediator not a talent you might associate with a politician as polarising as the us president. But it offers one explanation for this weeks big change the scrapping of article 370 of indias constitution, which permitted Jammu And Kashmir, the only state in india which has a muslim majority, a degree of autonomy. Kashmir is contested a permanent source of tension and occasional bouts of conflict with indias neighbour, pakistan. Until now, the us has treated Jammu And Kashmir as an internal matter. When President Trump told imran khan, the Prime Minister of pakistan, he was willing to mediate between the two countries, it might have convinced narendra modi, indias pm, it was time to act. Ashis ray, its a dramatic move. Will it lead to dramatic change . The jury is out. There is a lot of controversy, and what i can confirm as we speak is that the national conference, which has been the main Political Force in kashmirfor 75 years, in fact the party that gave a popular ratification to the maharajahs accession to india, has today gone to the Supreme Court in india to challenge the orders which have been passed. Of course, there are two parts to what happened earlier this week. The first is the scrapping of article 370, which gave a special status to kashmir by virtue of that accession treaty, but that was done away with by a president ial order. Then came two equally controversial moves. One was to downgrade the region from full statehood to what is called a union territory. Two union territories, as a matter of fact, because the state has been bifurcated into Jammu And Kashmir, which was the original title of the state, and ladakh, which is one of the regions of Jammu And Kashmir. Does that mean they can effectively be run from delhi . Yes, mainly by the Central Government. All controversial, but parts two and three have gone through the Indian Parliament and have been voted on favourably by both houses of parliament. That said, i think this move is seen by a lot of people as misguided and rash, for the simple reason that much of article 370 had been diluted, and it had been diluted with concurrence of the state assembly ofJammu And Kashmir, so in this case what has happened is that a draconian style has been adopted to do away with article 370, which gave, as i said, a degree of autonomy. To start with, when the accession treaty took place, only three items were with the indian Central Government defence, Foreign Affairs and communications. The rest were with the state. But, over the years. Its been eroded. Things have come back to the Central Government, but what has also happened is the assembly of Jammu And Kashmir, which sat between 1950 and 1957, finally said that article 370 cannot be abrogated, so it will be a very interesting a test case in the Supreme Court of india. Lets see what happens, what the Supreme Court has to say. Its high risk because presumably the danger is that it fans the conflict and makes people who have been pushing for independence for kashmir even more determined, because they have even less to lose. Yes, but there are two parallel streams here. One is the increasingly sharp and more draconian tone of politics in india, but as you mentioned correctly in the introduction there is also the global context. You see this all over the world, where local conflicts that had kind of been rested but stable are being pushed into actual volatility by heads of state that are trying to garner Popular Support and get votes, because they realise you can sort of get away with it now. America is not looking. If anything, it is actively encouraging this instability. China was traditionally an ally of pakistan and is now in its own islamophobic crisis. Saudi arabia is under the control of mohammad bin salman, who isnt somebody you can go to for help with subcontinental crises. Before, they used to pump money into pakistan. So there are a lot of global axes that before would have stabilised these kind of conflicts but who are either under their own populist leaders at the moment, or are distracted by something else. So i think we are going to see more of this, and weve seen this in saudi arabia and the middle east in general. Weve seen people trying to push their luck to see what they can get away with. Even though the 0bama administration and previous administrations were not particularly interventionist, in an explicit way, there was work behind the scenes, rapping of knuckles, but that doesnt happen anymore. We are beginning to see that rise to the top. Do you have a sense that hes made his bold move and hes going to get away with it . If any indian leader were going to do this, now would be the time, with electoral strength, the opposition disintegrating. I think nesrine is right. You framed this as donald trump offering to intervene, but he makes an entry into geopolitics and it goes the other way. Its funny, because the indian papers this morning thank god for the internet, i could read some of them but they are leading on Vladimir Putin endorsing this move. This is a huge thing. It says that, in asia now, Vladimir Putin has reasserted himself, and geopolitically russia is as strong as it has been in decades. The other thing is the china question. What i am coming around to is the absence of a response from pakistan. That seems very interesting to me, the idea that imran khan is not capable of merely shaking his fist about that move, and that says a lot about internal weakness in pakistan. When we talk about ladakh and Jammu And Kashmir, i looked at the map and the North Eastern border is with china, and i think, long before we get to any kind of violence, china will have a lot to say about some kind of resolution of without violence. I would say though that pakistan has already made several noises. The fact is that i am disappointed to inform pakistani friends that they dont really have a legal case in this situation. What pakistan can do, and they are already doing, is to take this matter up diplomatically and politically, and equally the Indian Government a right to defend their position. But what you mentioned to start with, russia has indicated that this is an internal situation, and i also see this as really kashmir versus delhi, because that is really what the battle is about. What is being feared in india is that kashmir will become more anti delhi and therefore disaffection and militancy will grow. Security forces will get bogged down, Human Rights Violations will take place. 0n the question of militancy, one way in which pakistan has been accused in the past on situations like this is by arming and supporting the militant groups that then use violence to further their cause. Indias argument is it is the pakistani Intelligence Forces encouraging radicalism in kashmir that has caused the breakdown of security, and effectively kashmir has been run by the Central Government since december. It is their argument for why they need to step in, to bring security, stability and Economic Development to kashmir. Thats the indian argument. I think the problem with that is threefold. 0ne, it is likely to radicalise politics within kashmir, which would undermine security. Second, it is likely to radicalise politics in pakistan. Any conflict over kashmir usually strengthens the army in pakistan, and conservative muslim elements will react strongly. Third, there is a great fear that what india might be about to engage in is what is happening in many countries, where you use ethnic displacement, where you use the large Mass Movement of people in order to extend political control. So the argument is that, up until now, hindus from outside kashmir have not been able to buy land or property or to settle within kashmir. Once you get rid of the special status, once new delhi is in control, they can move in, and its estimated it would take Something Like the move of 2. 5 million hindus into kashmir to change the ethnic status of kashmir, which would change political control. Thats the sort of thing weve seen taking place in china and tibet, and its something ive personally seen recently in iraq and the northern parts of iraq, where it is alleged that groups backed by shia militias are displacing christians. The long term fear of kashmiris is that political control will be taken over. Notjust hindus, but nobody from any other part of india can settle in kashmir. That is why imran khan this week talked about a fear of potential ethnic cleansing in kashmir. Doubtless, we will return to this topic. Borisjohnson looks like a man whos enjoying himself. The british Prime Minister, two weeks into the job, is at last able to do stuff. Hes instructed the treasury to come up with the money for 20,000 more Police Officers roughly equal to the number lost as a result of the austerity policy pursued by the two previous conservative Prime Ministers. As part of plans for a competitive, post brexit uk, hes changing the rules on immigration, turning the country, mrjohnson says, into a supercharged magnet drawing scientists like iron filings from around the world. But that magnet wont be powerful enough to attract the minority of his Party Colleagues who oppose leaving the European Union without an agreement. As the risk of that grows, so does talk of options for parliament to block a no deal brexit, and ways Prime Minister johnson could stop them. Tim, what do you think the Prime Minister and his team are up to . What they would say they are trying to do is to accomplish in three months what they would say theresa may failed to do in three years, which is to have a proper negotiation between equals, them with the eu, and they would say what equalises that negotiation is britain being ready and willing to walk away from the table, and that is why they are stepping up preparations for no deal. At this stage, when you are this close to crashing out by legal default on october the 31st, it doesnt matter if preparations for no deal is a bluff, which i suspect it is, or if britain is actually preparing for no deal, because when it comes down to spending the money, putting the infrastructure in, preparing the tax plans, there is no difference between that and just bluffing. In effect, what the government is trying to do is to accomplish what they would say theresa may failed to do. Dont forget, when they do this, they are talking to two audiences one is the eu, to say, you need to renegotiate and take out the backstop so we can sell it to the tory brexit rebels in parliament. They are also talking to the brexit party, because theyve done the maths and they know, if the conservative party is seen to pursue a soft, theresa may style brexit, they will win over a handful of moderates but they will lose about 20 of the electorate to the brexit party. If they pursue a harder brexit, even if it cant be done, even if it means they are forced to hold an election, even if it means political chaos, they are more likely to win an election if one is then held. So this is a huge political gamble. Nobody is denying that. But i also suspect that, at this stage, this close, with the choice really between leaving this year or not at all, my suspicion is that boriss very precarious path to brexit is probably the only path now left to britain for leaving the eu. So europe will blink first . No, it wont. This is my first time on the show since boris became Prime Minister, and throughout theresa mays premiership and towards the end it felt like an increasingly more precarious game ofjenga when is this going to collapse . And then, when she resigned, it seemed it was going to collapse even quicker, and now boris is really bringing the endgame, i think, notjust for the Brexit Process but i think for the tory party. It feels like there is some sort of running out of road for them as an ideological entity and as a practical government. And i agree, i agree with tim, i think that boris has cornered himself in this position, whether he believes in it or not, that this is the only way he can get some more road for the conservative party, because theyve pinned themselves to it and they cannot afford to lose brexit votes, and they are now really selling a hard brexit as a good thing. As opposed to a thing theyd rather avoid, now its suddenly something thats great. What is genuinely disturbing, actually, is this whole the eu is going to blink first, the eu will blink at one minute to midnight on the 31st of october, the eu doesnt want a no deal, and thats the only card we have in our pocket. Ijust think, if you are negotiating and doing this really complex, very smart, svengali type backdoor negotiations, you oughtnt to be waving the cards that are in your pocket all over the media all the time. This is what we have you are going to blink because we will threaten you with no deal. So the eu has complete ingress and insight into what the british cards are all you have is no deal, that is going to harm you more than us, we have made this very clear, why would we suddenly change our position, so close to the end . What is happening now in preparation for that, what is happening is this very disturbing, parallel universe, post truth situation, where michael gove and other brexiteers are saying, very disappointed in the eu, they are refusing to negotiate, not been very grown up, and we are being grown up and coming to the table. Its completely upside down. He said we hold all the cards the morning after we voted to leave, and there are no cards, just a bluff card. Yes and whats interesting is. I kept thinking of what donald trump said when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. He couldnt even remember the guys name, hejust said britain trump, and i keep remembering what boris said his criticism of theresa may was, she didnt follow Donald Trumps advice to go in well hard. I think he even said those precise words, like he is a well hard guy himself, you know, playing rugby against ten year olds. I have this terrible feeling that there is a similarity in their approach to getting things done between donald trump and Boris Johnson. Donald trump was a real estate developer. He used to go to brownfield sites with local politicians and say, we are going to build a great thing right here. Didnt have the money lined up or anything lined up. When i hear the daily, oh, heres a billion quid to build hs2 between leeds and manchester, 1. 9 billion for the nhs, as if he can magic this up i dont think it is an unknown quantity in brussels, and when they see this kind of behaviour, they willjust think, itsjust gas, there is nothing there. I do worry about how you complete. If we are headed towards the exit, and its clear that the remain groupings cannot agree on when to have coffee, much less a strategy to stop this train, i just worry that well end up on october the 31st with this hot air balloon suddenly being pricked and we will exit in the worst possible way. We do have cards. Which card . The extraordinary thing with theresa may was to say in the manifesto she believed no deal was better than a bad deal. If that was true, you have to prepare for the possibility of no deal. The government is arguing that you turn disadvantage to our advantage, and they are saying, we are suddenly outside and we need to attract scientists, so we suddenly change the visa system to attract scientists. You suddenly cut taxes. There is a lot of stuff that will be costly, things Like Operation kingfisher, to essentially compensate. How are these negotiations. . The eu will be hurt by us crashing out without a deal. Multiple cards . What about theresa may . The day after, assuming the worst Case Scenario on november the 1st, the day after, you are still going to have to negotiate a new Free Trade Agreement with the eu, and so they will say, what about that 39 billion quid you owe us when you crashed out . Thats one of the cards. If we leave without the deal, we dont play that. Thats a card for later on. So youd say you have no free tra