05/02/2018 BBC News at Six

Brussels tells Britain that the time

has come to choose what its future

relationship with the EU

will be after Brexit.

The EU's chief negotiator, Michel

Barnier, in London for talks, warns

that the decision to leave the

customs union will impact trade.

Without the customs union,

and outside the single market,

barriers to trade and goods

and services are unavoidable.

We want a comprehensive

free trade agreement,

and with it a customs agreement,

and to make that as frictionless

as possible to make as much trade

as currently exists,

as free as possible.

We will look at what impact leaving

the customs union will have on

Britain. Also tonight.

A man accused of hacking

into US Government computer

systems wins his legal

battle against extradition.

Running into trouble, the company

which operates the East Coast Main

Line is losing millions of pounds.

Now the government intervenes.

Tackling the underground trade

in super powerful painkillers that

have claimed more than 100 lives

in the last two years.

Fentanyl's a killer,

and the drug dealers are playing

russian roulette with our lives.

They give our children

drugs, and our children,

my child, died from it.

And 100 years after some women won

the right to vote in Britain -

we look back at their extraordinary

struggle for equality.

And later on we will have Sportsday

on the BBC News Channel with the

latest reports, results interviews

and features from the BBC sports

centre.

Good evening and welcome

to the BBC News at Six.

The Prime Minister has been warned

that her decision to leave

the EU's customs union,

which allows goods to move between

EU countries without tariffs -

will cause 'unavoidable'

barriers to trade.

And the European Union's chief

Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier,

who was in Downing Street for talks

today, said the time had come

for Britain to make a choice

on what it wants for its future.

But the Brexit Secretary David Davis

said being outside the customs union

would allow the United Kingdom

to strike new trade deals

with the rest of the world.

Here's our Political

Editor Laura Kuenssberg.

In a hurry. Not just to catch the

1056 from Brussels to London.

We

have not a minute to lose, because

we want to achieve a deal.

But the

EU's chief negotiator wants to press

on. It is time for bargaining he

says as the next round of Brexit

talks loom. The first priority for

him and his host David Davis is to

agree what happens straight after

Brexit.

Do you know what the British

government wants?

In the to years or

so time frame not much will change

but the real posturing is about the

longer term. Theresa May popped in

for a drink after reminding her

party that she wants out of the

single market free trade area and

the current customs union. But she

knows, along with these to, there

might be mishaps along the way.

Our

negotiating team is starting

straightaway, tomorrow certainly on

an intensive period of negotiation

and we can get that agreement.

Yet

while this might sound elegant in a

French accent it is still a warning.

Without the customs union, outside

the single market, barriers to trade

and goods and services are

unavoidable. Time has come to a

choice.

In other words, Foreign

Secretary and others, make your mind

up. The EU's has consistently said

we can't keep the best bits of the

EU without losing somewhere. But

that has always been rejected by

Brexiteers.

What my side wants, what

most of the country wants is a good

deal. The way to get a good deal is

to be very clear that we are

leaving, we are leaving the single

market, leaving the customs union.

The fear of others in the Tory party

and the government is that the

Eurosceptics are too close to No 10.

This

week the Prime Minister hopes to get

the Cabinet to find a compromise.

What is more important, sticking

close to the EU or making the most

of freedom outside?

We've heard a

lot of, we are not going to do this,

we are not going to do that. What

are we going to do? That is what

we're waiting to hear, that is what

the 27 countries the UK's

negotiating with waiting to hear. In

the meantime this uncertainty is

really, really bad for business.

No

10 has to make bargains within its

party as well as with the EU

outside. Today's talks were about

the EU in the UK plug-in backing

before the next charge round of

negotiations really gets going but

arguably for there to be meaningful

progress any time soon the UK

ministers have to speed up their

decisions about their overall

approach. None of the questions are

easy but after months of squabbling

time to discuss becomes time to

decide. Laura Kuenssberg, BBC News,

Westminster.

So what will be the impact

of leaving the customs union?

And how will trade between the UK

and the Europena Union be affected?

Our Economics Editor,

Kamal Ahmed is here.

Thank you Sophie. First thing.

Trade really matters to the UK -

we export 28% of everything

we make.

Our biggest customer is the EU.

43% of all UK exports go there.

And to help that

trade we are a member

of what is called the customs union.

That means that goods and services

can circulate freely throughout

the EU with no import taxes

and few border checks.

UK farms are able to integrate

themselves into supply chain

networks so farms can have their

manufacturing networks extend across

countries. The second main benefit

is that large multinational

companies who have located the

investment and jobs in the UK in the

first place, to take advantage of

not just the UK market but also the

European market, the third benefit

is that as a part of the large EU

trading block the UK could extract

concessions in negotiating with

other countries like China that they

might not have got if they were

operating individually.

The

government has made it clear it

wants to leave the customs union so

we are less constrained by EU trade

rules but as Michel Barnier made

clear today that means taxes and

border checks are likely for our

exports to the EU, like food and

cars. And that is a barrier to

trade. And we could respond by

applying our own taxes to imports

from the EU, which could increase

prices. The Prime Minister insists

she wants a good trade deal with the

EU. She calls and frictionless

trade. And for businesses like this

steel firm in Northern Ireland,

having no border checks really

matters.

If anyone can remember back

to the days when we did have to stop

at the border and we did have

customs clearance processes, very

very disruptive. Not constructive or

helpful to businesses or trading

between the countries.

The British government says it wants

to throw its trade arms wide and do

free trade deals with countries

like America and China,

prevented at present

because we are a member

of the customs union.

The problem is how quickly

can we do those deals,

and will they replace the close

trading relationship

we presently have with our most

important export customer.

Thank you.

A 33-year-old man accused of hacking

into US government computers has won

a High Court challenge

against his extradition

to the United States.

Lauri Love, who has Asperger's

syndrome, is alleged to have carried

out a series of cyber attacks

on targets including the FBI.

Mr Love was facing a 99-year

jail sentence in the US

but he could still be

prosecuted in the UK,

as Daniela Relph reports.

For four years, the threat

of extradition to the United States

had hung over him.

Lauri Love described it

as "gnawing away at his soul".

Today that threat was lifted.

The reason I've gone through this

ordeal is not just to save myself

from being kidnapped and locked up

for 99 years in a country I've never

visited, but it is to set

a precedent whereby this

will not happen to other

people in the future.

The Appeal Court judges ruled

that Lauri Love was vulnerable,

that extradition to America

could lead to severe depression,

and make him a suicide risk.

And crucially, for his well-being,

he needed to be close

to his parents, here in Britain.

The relief for Lauri Love,

his family, and supporters

is obvious, of course.

They believe that this

decision is just and humane.

In a spate of online

attacks in 2012 and 2013,

Lauri Love is alleged to have hacked

into the computers and systems

of several US government agencies.

They include the FBI,

the Department of Defense,

the Federal Reserve,

America's central bank,

and the space agency Nasa.

Lauri Love was traced via a Romanian

e-mail address and a PayPal account.

He's been interviewed here

by Britain's National Crime Agency

but, as yet, has not been charged.

Today's judgment did not rule out

a prosecution here in the UK,

something his family

and his supporters are prepared for.

How do you feel about the prospect

of a trial here in the UK

and a possible jail term?

I do trust a trial in the UK.

In the US, the chances of me ever

getting a trial are quite slim just

because people are forced to plead

guilty to avoid huge charges,

huge sentences that they might face

if they take a trial.

In the UK, we don't strong-arm

people into facilitating

their own prosecutions.

This case has been a strain

on the entire Love family,

especially Lauri's father,

who is a prison chaplain.

There is a consensus of agreement

about the things

that really matter, about decency,

about justice, about fairness.

I've always believed to be born

in these islands is to win

the lottery of life

and that what makes Britain great

makes it Great Britain,

is not our power or our might,

but the fact that it is

a great place to live.

The United States now has two weeks

to lodge a request for an appeal

hearing at the UK Supreme Court.

The Crown Prosecution

Service will also decide

whether to bring charges.

But, despite the remaining

uncertainty, this was a day

to celebrate for Lauri Love.

He now wants to focus

on his electrical engineering degree

and is planning to pursue

a career in cyber security.

Daniela Relph, BBC News,

at the Court of Appeal.

The only surviving suspect

in the terror attacks in Paris

in 2015 is refusing to answers

questions in court, where he's

on trial over the gunfight

that led to his arrest.

On the first day of his

trial in Brussels,

Salah Abdeslam said that his silence

didn't make him a criminal, and that

Muslims were "judged mercilessly".

The Transport Secretary Chris

Grayling has announced

that the company Stagecoach,

which operates rail services

on the East Coast Main Line, has

suffered significant losses and that

he's ending its contract.

Let's get more on this

developing story from our

business editor, Simon Jack.

What's happened, and what does this

mean for passengers?

Stagecoach owns 90% of the franchise

which runs the East Coast Main Line,

Virgin owns the rest, they already

said when they bid for this

contract, which is the seven years,

they said we got our sums wrong, we

want out only. They were going to

let the magic 2020. This evening the

Transport Secretary says it is much

worse than we thought, this

franchise will be passed within

months so he needs to do something.

The to options are renationalise the

line, which is very much on the

table, users, or allow Stagecoach

Virgin to operate short-term

not-for-profit service until

something can be decided. Stagecoach

could bid for franchise in the

future. He said there was no legal

basis to exclude them. For

passengers and the real servers that

shouldn't affect them which is why

he's taking action now but this will

no doubt re-inflame the intense

debate, after the collapse of

Carillion as well, over how much

private sector companies should be

allowed to bid for critical public

services like this.

Simon Jack,

thank you. The time is coming up to

quarter past six.

quarter past six. Our top story.

Brussels ones but are not leaving

the customs union will lead to trade

barriers.

And still to come...

The white supremacist convicted

of planning to carry out an act

of terrorism at a gay pride

event in Cumbria.

Coming up on Sportsday referee John

Moss is backed after he awarded a

controversial penalty in the game

between Liverpool and Spurs but

admits he was misguided and

consulting a fourth official.

Fentanyl - it's an extremely

strong painkiller

thousands of times more

powerful than morphine.

Doctors prescribe it

for cancer patients.

But dozens of people have died

in Britain in the last couple

of years after taking it

to get a high.

Today, a 25-year-old drug dealer

from Newport was sentenced to eight

years in prison for exporting

and selling fentanyl

on the dark web.

Since December 2016,

113 people have died in the UK

after overdosing on the drug.

It's used worldwide but almost 10%

of global sales take place here.

Our correspondent, Jeremy Cooke,

has been taking a look

at where the drug is coming

from and who's being affected by it.

His report contains

some flashing images.

It looks like chemical warfare.

But this is a police raid on a drug

dealer who was selling fentanyl over

the internet from his home.

Kyle Enos has now been sentenced

to eight years in prison,

serious time for a serious

drug which has taken

lives up and down the country.

Robert was 6 foot 5

by two inches wide.

Hi, guys!

He was the kindest, gentlest

person in the world.

Full of life, full of promise,

but when 18-year-old Robert Fraser

went to buy cannabis,

the dealer gave him

something new, something

different, something deadly.

I got a phone call from my

ex-husband to say he'd just

walked in and found

Robert dead in bed.

And I just remember thinking,

he hasn't said that.

He can't have said that.

It's not true.

Robert knew nothing

about fentanyl, a

synthetic opioid drug which users

snort, swallow or inject.

It's related to heroin but can be

thousands of times more powerful.

Fentanyl's a killer.

And the drug dealers are playing

Russian roulette with our lives.

They give our children

drugs and my child died

from it.

Dealing with fentanyl is a game

changer, for the police and

emergency services and in this

government-licensed lab.

It can be absorbed by

the skin, so we just

don't want any risk.

They've been trained

to be super careful.

Because just a few grains

of fentanyl can kill.

So it's powerful and cheap,

and for dealers, that

means big profits.

They've seen it all here.

Heroin, cocaine, crystal meth.

But nothing like this.

Fentanyl's just a different

category of drug altogether.

And the potential harm

that they can cause

is just way above anything

we've had in the past.

But where is fentanyl coming from?

The BBC is undercover

in China on the trail of the

suppliers and so a meeting

with the laboratory boss

and his translator.

Let's talk business.

So 1kg of fentanyl...

China has banned production

of some types of fentanyl

but labs can work around the law

by making small changes

in the fentanyl molecule.

And they are happy to ship the drug

anywhere in the world.

2000...

Within minutes we are

being offered a deal.

The BBC bought no drugs

but what is clear is that

fentanyl is on sale to anyone

with the money to buy it.

This one is very powerful.

Very strong.

Yes, very strong.

Can you send this to England?

Yes, yes, England.

From China to Britain,

UK drug dealers get wholesale

deliveries, then break them down

to sell on the internet.

Really, it looks much

like any other online

marketplace.

Jamie Bartlett is an author

who writes about the

so-called dark net, a hidden,

unregulated corner of the internet.

But you have cannabis,

ecstasy, opioids,

psychedelic steroids and so on.

408 different offerings

of fentanyl on

this website alone.

Yeah.

Fentanyl is a highly

dangerous substance.

And carfentanyl,

an elephant tranquilliser,

is still moderately.

It makes all of these

products which were never

within which especially of young

people far more easy to get

than ever before.

In this area alone over

the past year at least six

deaths have been linked to the drug.

Kenny was lucky not

to be the seventh.

Ended up using what I

thought was heroin.

And turns out it wasn't.

What was it?

It was fentanyl or

carfentanyl, not sure.

Kenny has a history of drug abuse

and overdo overdosed on fentanyl.

Luckily he was in the Moses project

drop-in centre with the antidote

nearby.

I overdosed, that's

as much as I can remember.

Injected it and overdosed.

I was dead.

Seeing red, it was like blood

was covering my eyes.

The spike of deaths across

north-east England put fentanyl

firmly on the radar

of the National Crime Agency.

They know the drug is taking

thousands of lives in America

and are determined to stop it here.

The NCA has prioritised the threat

from fentanyl and its analogues back

in April last year, and it's

still priority today.

So we have a number of officers

working solely on that threat.

Michelle knows the cost of fentanyl.

How it took Robert's life.

What it does to families.

People sitting in their

bedrooms, clicking

a button, and getting it.

Why, how?

The world I grew up

in wasn't like that.

And I don't want that future

for my little lad either.

My surviving little lad.

Michelle is now a campaigner,

determined to make

us all aware of the dangers of

fentanyl, how easy it is to get, how

easily it kills.

Jeremy Cooke, BBC News.

Details of organisations offering

information and support

with addiction are available

at bbc.co.uk/actionline,

or you can call for free at any time

to hear recorded information.

The number is 08000 155 947.

UK sales of new diesel cars

fell by 25% in January,

according to the latest figures.

Diesel cars have been the focus

of air quality concerns,

prompting speculation that owners

could face higher taxes or limits

on where they can be used.

Motor manufacturers claim that

buyers are confused by government

policies on diesels.

A white supremacist who planned

to carry out a machete attack

at a gay pride event in Cumbria has

been convicted of preparing

an act of terrorism.

20-year-old Ethan Stables

was arrested after police

were tipped off when he posted

details of his plans online.

Here's our home affairs

correspondent, Dominic Casciani.

Ethan Stables,

self-confessed neo-Nazi.

For more than six months,

the 20-year-old planned

a white supremacist attack

in Barrow-in-Furness.

Online, he spread hate.

In the real world,

he bought weapons and

recorded this shocking video.

It's just like gay people.

Much nicer when they're on fire.

In a series of frightening

posts, he told fellow

neo-Nazis on Facebook

that he would attack this pub,

hosting a gay pride night.

I'm going to war

tonight, he told them.

I'm going to walk in with a machete

and slaughter every single one.

Some readers encouraged him,

but one replied, that's not right,

Ethan.

He posted this reconnaissance

picture and signed off, I'm fighting

for what I believe in.

My country, my folk, my race.

Barmaid Katie Bulger

was setting up for the night

when armed officers, tipped off

by a Facebook user, rushed in.

It frightened me.

Because I felt like

a deer in headlights.

So angry, so angry

afterwards to think that

somebody would actually do something

like that to a peaceful place.

With the pub surrounded

just over there

by armed police, the manhunt

across Barrow continued.

And shortly after 10pm,

Ethan Stables was arrested on

this road between his

flat and the target.

Prosecutors said that this

was his last act of reconnaissance

before he would have gone

home to get his weapons.

And this is what police

recorded finding after they

broke into his flat.

A swastika flag on the wall,

weapons including an axe

laid out and prepared,

and evidence

that Stables was trying

to make his own explosives.

His intended victims are furious

that he could post his

hatred online.

It would have been a bloodbath.

Personally, I think Facebook should

have closed his account.

His main picture

was him looking very

Aryan in front of a

swastika banner, flag.

And also, some of the literature

was like, a new world

order this, and very

extreme Nazi propaganda.

Facebook won't comment on why

Stables was online, despite

receiving four complains

about his posts.

He told his trial his comments

weren't serious and he was in

fact bisexual.

He will be sentenced later

for preparing an act of

terrorism only discovered by chance.

Dominic Casciani, BBC

News, Barrow-in-Furness.

Tomorrow marks 100 years since women

won the right to vote.

But the Representation

of the People Act only granted that

right to women over the age of 30

who had certain property

qualifications.

It would be another decade before

all women over the age of 21

were allowed to vote.

Our correspondent Sarah Smith

reports now on the momentous

moment in the struggle

for gender equality.

The Palace of Westminster was built

as an exclusively all-male

club, no women allowed.

So suffragettes often

targeted Parliament itself.

Four of them chained themselves

to these statues in 1909.

Their militant behaviour

was then used as an argument

for why votes for women

would be exceedingly dangerous.

Hidden beneath those

corridors of power,

there is an intriguing memorial

to the suffragette movement.

In 1911, thousands of women

tried to avoid being

registered in the census.

Emily Davison was one

of the protesters who said,

if women don't count,

then neither shall we be counted.

Emily Davison spent the night hiding

behind this door in a broom cupboard

underneath Westminster Hall.

She was discovered in here,

so she was registered

in the census as being resident

in the House of Commons.

A woman runs out.

There is a fall.

Davison did not live

to see women win the vote.

She died in 1913 after running

into the path of the King's

horse at the Epsom Derby.

But she may not have

intended to kill herself.

This is the actual scarf

Emily Davison had with her that

fateful day at the derby.

And it's thought now it might have

been her intention to try and attach

it to the bridle of the King's horse

rather than to actually

bring the horse down.

The scarf is owned today

by a collector who let me see

a telegram she's never

shown publicly before.

Sent from Queen Alexandra

to the injured jockey.

Yes, it says, Queen Alexandra

was very sorry indeed to hear

of your sad accident caused

by the abominable conduct

of a brutal, lunatic woman.

This is really strong language.

A brutal, lunatic woman.

People had mixed feelings

about the militant suffragettes.

Half of them thought they were crazy

and half of them thought that

that was the only way,

by destroying property, that they

would actually achieve the vote.

As MPs, women continued

campaigning for equal rights.

Edith Summerskill, on the left,

was first elected in 1938.

Her daughter, Shirley, followed her

into the Commons in 1964.

Women who have got to anywhere

in their career are very conscious,

and should be, of the women

who went before.

And paved the way.

And made it possible.

That includes Saffron Dickson,

just 20 years old.

And because she lives in Scotland,

she's already voted six times,

thanks to the suffragettes

who fought for her rights.

Hopefully, I like to think that

I would be at the front line,

you know, totally involved.

But that's coming from a privileged

perspective of somebody that has

a political voice just now

because of the

women that made those sacrifices.

But, actually, we've got so many

different issues still happening.

In the workplace, sexual assault

and harassment, pay parity,

still affecting women today.

100 years of remarkable change

since women got the vote.

But any suffragette surveying

the political scene today

would undoubtedly see much that

still needs to be done.

Sarah Smith, BBC News.

Time for a look at the weather.

Here's Louise Lear.

Here's Louise Lear.

We walk up to some record-breaking

snow in Moscow this morning. Four is

only UK, a light dusting in parts of

Sussex and into account. Some blue

sky and some sunshine also, as you

can see inside and cold and

Birmingham, but were we so blue sky

and sun, temperatures are likely to

follow the sharply next year was.

You can see this ribbon of cloud in

the far north-west. That weather

front arrives overnight to make

bringing snow into Scotland,

Northern Ireland, north-west

England, grinding to a halt in the

Pennines by dawn tomorrow morning.

There will be a hard frost for many

first thing. Some sunshine across

the south-east. As we go into the

morning, the weather front continues

to drift its way through Wales and

perhaps the north Midlands.

Weakening a little by the end. The

band of cloud follows behind. Some

showers in the North of Scotland

with hail and snow. That adds study

relations you have first thing

tomorrow. The weather front will be

sitting down through the Northwest

of England and into Wales. In the

Midlands, cloudy, best of the

sunshine in the south-east. In the

south-west, a band of cloud and

rain. As we go into the afternoon,

the weather front weakens as it goes

through the Midlands. The odds snow

shower from time to time. Nothing

too substantial. It will be cold

tomorrow, temperatures really

struggling. 2-4dC at the very best.

We need to keep a close eye through

the evening. The number of areas, we

could be waking up to light dusting

of snow first thing on Wednesday. A

cold and frosty start. A dry day for

most of us before more rain pushes

into the north-west.

Thank you.