to dateline london. how much, if anything, should britain pay to leave the european union? how bad is the military situation facing the group calling itself islamic state? and is wikileaks a good or a bad thing? my guests today are greg katz of associated press. abdel bari atwan who is a writer and commentator on arab affairs. maria margaronis of the nation. and david aaronovitch of the times. very good to see you. when britain leaves the eu, we should be faced with a stiff bill for the divorce. or the alternative metaphor is that it is like leaving a golf club — we stop paying when we stop playing. which is it? and how much is the chancellor of the exchequer trying to save money to pay for what he knows will be an expensive few years ahead? what should we pay? what is the tariff for leaving? does anybody have any idea? no. since we think she will do the triggering on tuesday, and therefore the big discussions, it seems likely... there are things that have to be done before that. the ides of march are upon us. then the discussions happen, in principle, about these things. it was interesting listening to some of the europeans this week, because it suddenly occurred to the media in britain it was time we found out what those people on the other side of the continent believed. we do it in a desultory way. now it matters. they exist in terms of the council and the commission and in terms of the parliament and in terms of 27 other nations, all of whom have to ratify what deal is done. this question of how much britain should pay as part of the divorce is only one thing they have to discuss and it is in with all the other. it seems obvious that we have incurred some degree of liability and responsibility for whatever the separation costs will be and for ongoing costs of the eu. you do notjust walk away at this point. but how much that ends up being, bari, you guess. thank you. i am talking about 60 billion. the foreign secretary borisjohnson said we should not give them anything. you cannot have a free divorce. if you decide to divorce, you have to pay the price, it is as simple as that. it will be painful in the beginning, but after that you have to realise you are exporting 50% of your exports to europe. it has to be a soft landing, it has to be flexibility from the british side if they want to keep good relations with the ex—wife, for example. there should be payment. at the same time there should be soft exit without problems, because it is in the interests of britain to keep good relations with the eu. they are angry and upset and we should understand that. i am not sure about the divorce metaphor, it is like breaking up a business. we have been part of what jeremy clarkson would call the biggest budget in the world. a huge budget. we made promises to participate in projects ahead and we cannotjust say, sorry, we said we will do this but we are not going to now. we can say that. it would not be right. as david said, the european parliament have to vote on the final deal and the commission and i agree, there has been an atmosphere in the british press of fog in the channel, continent cut off. we are not in charge. the other point underlining what david said, you do not know how much of this is boxers squaring up before a match, a lot of talk, and eventually it will get down to boring detail about who owes what for what. it will get down to a long discussion with difficult detail that civil servants will have to sit there and crack out. the reality as far as the 60 billion, we will not know the realfigure. if she triggers article 50 on tuesday, it will be a year and 364 days and 23.5 hours before we know the realfigure and we will have to have two years of the press pointing fingers about it. but it will be a hard negotiation. it will be an important part of it. while we look at crystal balls with various degrees of incompetence! do you think there is a chance theresa may will go for an early election? some people look at the state of the labour party and the question of whether she has a mandate. we love this one. for once, it is a good question, because if i were her, i would. this year? may? i would say, i am the new prime minister, i do not have my own mandate and i am likely to get a bigger majority than the awkward majority i have at the moment, made up largely of people who did not want to come out of the eu whereas if i get a 100 seat majority overjeremy corbyn‘s pathetic and hopeless labour party, i am away and swimming and i can pretty much dictate the terms. two things would stop you, the first is the complexities of triggering the election, trigger being the word. the word of the year. the difficulty because we have a fixed—term parliament, but it can be achieved. then the question of the uncertainties. is itjust possible that somewhere out there lies a new ukip leader who can get 50% of the vote? the revival of the lib dems on the a pro—european... none of these things are likely. jeremy corbyn. tony blair. david miliband comes back. but there is one problem and that is scotland. if you go to the country and the scots go to the country at the same time, and they as a result get a significant mandate for the westminster parliament for the snp, an overwhelming one... that strengthens the snp's call for a second referendum. they are strong on being pro—european. you are scottish... there is a scottish problem, but all sorts of other problems. theresa may said we do not need more instability. that we have to make sure the ship is going in the right direction. up to now she is handling things wisely and not taking a very strong stance against europe, she is trying to negotiate. i agree with david, she should go for election. she should have a mandate, because it is a huge responsibility and i believe the time is right to do this. gordon brown did it at a certain stage after tony blair. she needs that. she needs a strong mandate from the british people. why not another referendum, with brexit, for example? why not another scottish referendum? that is the nub, whether there is a british people any more or whether scotland is going a different way from england. northern ireland is going a different way. to keep them in, you should give them a good example. another referendum. on brexit? why not? and your prime minister... a strong mandate for the prime minister and a referendum again. i don't think i can bear it! a referendum a year. if there were an election, and this is the issue, is it about yes, we have a tory party who will win, because there is no opposition? or will it be an election on brexit, in which, maybe by some miracle the lib dems and the part of labour for remaining in the eu, get together. the other problem it might solve is the house of lords question and how much parliament should be consulted about this. if theresa may had a thumping majority, she could say, the british people have spoken again, i am the right person to negotiate, parliament can decide what it likes, but my party runs parliament. she adds to her majority if she calls an election. she well may do it but it does not solve anything in scotland and may make it worse. the idea that labour and the lib dems come together as a saviour act. we like to dream! i do not see anyone sitting in that party about to leap to the fore, in either party. i think she would end up with a bigger majority. she may do it. in syria and iraq, the territory held by islamic state is shrinking and under siege. what difference will it make if they are driven out of towns and cities, and how will that affect the chances of terrorist attacks in the middle east, europe and elsewhere? they are under great difficulty and pressure. in mosul, raqqa, and the humanitarian catastrophe might get worse. we do not know about the humanitarian catastrophe because there is a blackout on what is happening in mosul. there are 150,000 iraqi forces attacking mosul, they liberated the eastern part of it and they are facing difficulties with the western part, because there are narrow alleyways, it is the old city. it seems that islamic state have managed to dig a lot of tunnels there so they are fighting. there are difficulties and a lot of casualties. we do not know about the people, do they have food, electricity, water? but definitely the islamic state is losing a lot of ground there and there are reports that maybe the leader of islamic state managed to run away to another part of iraq, and that he is hiding. we don't know. the americans say he left mosul. if you know that, why did you not kill him, for example, if you have information about him, and he is still alive and he managed to run away. who is going to liberate raqqa? and what will happen after they liberate mosul and raqqa? who will be the sovereign ruler. raqqa is part of syria. now there is a huge problem between the russians and americans and between turks and the russians, when it comes to syria. the americans would like the kurds, the syrian democratic army, to do thejob, because they trust them. but turkey doesn't. they say we are sunni, they are sunni, and we should do thejob. where is the united states in this? we have seen marines apparently are part of this. several hundred marines. i do not think the mission has been clearly explained, it was done quietly and i do not think the media has had a chance to ask questions of the trump administration on their role. it is not clear to what degree they will cooperate. the american position is influx and not clear at this point. they wanted boots on the ground and i expected more attention to be paid to that in the states. presumably, at least in the short—term, given the humanitarian problems everybody expects outside mosul. we might expect more migrants as well. the refugee crisis is still with us and will get worse. in the longer run, what is there to hold this loose and difficult situation together? what is there for people in the arab world to look to for hope? islamic state has a plan b. but their opponents, enemies, they do not have a plan b. to retreat to the desert? 0k, they will go underground. they start causing a lot of terrorism, attacks in the middle east, and outside, because they will be relieved from running big cities like mosul and raqqa. but what is the plan b for the coalitions there? there are 60, 70 countries fighting islamic state now. they disagree among themselves. we have seen bloodcurdling reports there could be 800, 900 fighters who wish to come back to this country from that area. i think we have a good handle on who those people are likely to be. i am not saying i am not worried about it, but i think bari's point is the key — who takes raqqa? you can see the iraqi government will end up in control of mosul and the question is whether the iraqi government can behave in such a way it can deal with the sunni population, majority population, and they can come to an agreement, which is a big question that involves the kurds. raqqa is more of a problem. you can take it, but who keeps it? there you go back to the fact you are in the middle of the syrian civil war. i tend to believe from what i have heard that isis, whose unique selling proposition is the caliphate, will be weakened and although it has a great deal of propaganda capacity, which is mobile, it can take it with it, on the whole there are other groups. you should look at the al-qaeda affiliates and successor organisations. who hold territory. they hold bits of territory, and they have capacity and they have not at the moment as is will, the reputation of being defeated. they are still extant in syria. as you raise, the question of people coming back. organisation of ferrorist events in the west. i tend to think that will carry on as it did before. i do not think it will be significantly worse as a result of the end. most of the big questions about isis are in the region. you have written about the digital caliphate, the idea and means of communication will continue whatever happens on the ground. it is much cheaper for them to go underground. it is less problematic. they do not need to run a bigger state or bigger cities like mosul and raqqa. if you say you want to have a caliphate and we have declared it and here we are and you are not there any more, it is a huge difference. you cannot invite people any more — the big online recruiting. the problem is look at al-qaeda now. why we are busy with islamic state. now al-qaeda is gaining strength in different parts of the middle east and now they are very strong in yemen, in parts of africa. they start to gather strength and recruit people. the same thing, islamic state will do they same. they have branches — in sinai, iraq, syria, afghanistan, pakistan. ijust came back from india. they are worried about terrorist attacks by islamic state, especially among the muslim community. we are now seeing this terrible famine. how that will play together i do not know. i wonder whether al-qaeda will be almost like a successor organisation, as a more kind of sensible islamist force. donald trump claimed — based on no evidence, apparently — that predecessor barack obama wanted to wiretap him. the language seems quaint, given that we learned this week — courtesy of wikileaks — that the cia can not only bug your phone, but your tv and, for all i know, your toaster and teapot as well. is wikileaks doing a public service, or is it a danger to the security of democracies? how do you think wikileaks is seen by the trump administration? they go back and forth. trump, i think, was happy when wikileaks was releasing e—mails from the democratic national committee and was kind of thrilled that all those embarrassing e—mails were coming out. now he is in the white house, he is annoyed the cia's secret weapons, online weapons, are being revealed online, so now he wants them to please be quiet and play a different game. basically, this release is quite embarrassing to the cia and has a lot of practical overtones. nobody is surprised they are trying to get into your phones and tvs. releasing thousands of pages of know how and detailed coding is not something... and nobody knows where it came from. that is my problem with wikileaks. i need to know where it comes from. it can sometimes be illegal to publish material that has been stolen as long as you did not steal it. that does not satisfy my own ethical concerns. i would like to know more about where it is coming from. that is the point. edward snowden, an insider, discontented, saying people in america need to know this. if that is the case here, you might take a moraljudgment, if it came from russian intelligence, you might take another judgment. if our friend mr assange, if his goal was to damage hillary clinton and help donald trump, which he has implied, that is meddling into domestic politics. i am not crazy about the idea of him trying to shape elections. wikileaks, good or bad? wikileaks used to provide a useful service and i rememberthings like the release of the guantanamo operation manual and lists of membership of the american far right groups. the toxic dump on the ivory coast. something else has happened since. julian assange is locked up in the embassy and has taken complete control of the organisation and got rid of people he used to trust. he is paranoid — like kids sitting in their mother's basements, posting alt— right stuff. i don't think he has an agenda, a political agenda in the way you suggest, i think his agenda is his own aggrandisement. so he can be used by almost anybody and we do not know who is using him. wikileaks is doing a good job for us. we must expose these intelligence services, the cia, and data threats against us. why not? it is almost like dark rooms. they are plotting here, plotting their, let us expose them and let them be aware there are people vetting their operations and knowing what they are doing. i had a look at wikileaks, because i was mentioned several times when it comes to the middle east. it was a greatjob, doing a great job against these brutal dictatorships in that part of the world and how they function, how they bribe people, how they pay dirty money, financing wars in our part of the world, dealing with superpowers like the us. it is nice to know. i think wikileaks is doing a greatjob. it is selective releases. we hear about hillary clinton's e—mails. also give us the truth about russia. the chinese... one of the difficulties, one of the mysteries, why are there no russian and chinese whistle— blowers? icannot imagine! you can expect a face wipe in an airport, that is why, or somebody will saunter across waterloo bridge with an umbrella and stick it in your foot! the problems for whistle— blowers, one of the great benefits of having these open societies is our whistle—blowers, they don't generally face being offed by the state any more. journalists want to know everything, but as citizens we don't necessarily want everything to be known. there are a lot of things our spooks are doing to find out, say, about jihadis that i want them to do. let's say the proposition was, could you bug a jihadi's television so when they are having a conversation about who to bomb you could pick it up? i am in favour. i would be in general not in favour of that being known so the jihadis could stop it happening. so we would share that. insofar as that is what is being explored, i am antsy about other people discovering it and the jihadis discovering what's going on. let's admit we are conflicted. the big question in a democratic society is what oversight you have about what your spooks are doing so you can be relatively sure they are doing the things you would approve of. a lot of the dark arts i want them to do. i want them to stop people blowing up our schools and so on. this would be news to us but not to russian or chinese intelligence that you can get a samsung television and bug it. as citizens we might not know this. the russians might be ahead of us in terms of doing that. what makes you say that?! look at the american election and what happened! there are good cyber attackers out there. allegedly, yes. they are welcome to sue in the british courts. wikileaks, good or bad? is it for you the question of provenance, where does it come from? who is doing it for whose benefit? discrimination. i don't regard data dumping as whistle— blowing. it is not whistle—blowing. whistle—blowing is you think something is wrong going on and you bring attention to that thing. taking every bit of data and dumping it in the open without care about what it is or where it comes from... and failing to redact personal information. they are now doing that. not all of the time. they are spying on us. we do not have any privacy. let's expose them. they always spied on us. my parents were spied on with telephones tapped, because they were communists. the question is whether there is a proper degree of oversight. there are enemies of society within society you might want this done to. democracy has become the establishment, as per steve bannon, who wants to dismantle, and trump wants to dismantle the establishment. then dismantling democratic institutions becomes a part of that. it could be the cia. how as journalists should we treat this? previous leaks, journalists have redacted it themselves — information has become available to british newspapers and they say they will not publish that because it puts lives at risk. that seems to have changed. wikileaks has been good at manipulating the media and the first response in most cases is, let's publish everything, and the documents may be not fit for the public to see, because it contains names of agents or personal information about people who have not done anything wrong. i am more sceptical of what they release than a lot of my colleagues and... you do not think it is as important as they suggest? julian is very good at making what he is about to do sound important. i would like to know if the swedish are going to charge him with any sexual offences, and i would like to know whether the us does or does not have an indictment against him. these things are important for understanding who he is and where he stands. i would like to know why farage went to see him on thursday. i think he wanted an interview, nothing more. we'll see. that's it for dateline london this week. you can comment on the programme on twitter @gavinesler. and probably bug our tvs, as well. and engage with our guests. we're back next week at the same time. make a date with dateline london. goodbye. a mild start, heavy bursts in the south, cloudier, dank and coolerfor eastern parts, brightening up after a great and misty start in eased in scotla nd a great and misty start in eased in scotland but western scott and, wales and the south—west lose any brightness. some brighter weather for the midlands, north—east england and for western fringes, sunshine later. fresher feeling, and for western fringes, sunshine later. fresherfeeling, not as high as saturday. especially in the area with more cloud and rain. a ridge of high pressure will weaken the weather front through sunday nights on monday will start chilly, a touch of frost, most of us will have a fine day on monday. —— through sunday night. more cloud in the south on tuesday. still a lot hello and welcome to bbc news. i'm gavin grey. the diplomatic row between the netherlands and turkey has worsened as the dutch government prevented two turkish ministers from addressing a rally in rotterdam. the turkish family affairs minister said on twitter that she was being escorted by police to the german border after being stopped from driving to her consulate in the city. dutch riot police have used water cannons to break up hundreds of turkish supporters who'd gathered to demonstrate against the dutch government's decision. sarah corker reports. in the centre of rotterdam, a tense stand—off between hundreds of pro—turkish demonstrators and dutch riot police.