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British Prime Minister Theresa May has said her twice-defeated Brexit deal still lacked support in Parliament but that she hopes to eventually secure enough votes to get the deal approved.

MPs are trying to force May’s government to change its approach through a series of parliamentary votes designed to identify what deal if any could the find majority support that May’s plan has not.

“It is with great regret that I have had to conclude that as things stand, there is still not sufficient support in the House to bring back the deal for a third meaningful vote,” May told parliament on Monday.

She added that she “was continuing to talk to colleagues across this house, and I would hope to be able to bring back a vote in this House that enables us to guarantee Brexit,” but it was unclear when such a vote might take place.

May’s divorce deal was defeated by 149 votes in Parliament on March 12 and by 230 votes on January 15.

The PM also said that parliament would debate secondary legislation on Wednesday to formally change the date of Brexit in British law.

Britain was due to exit the European Union on March 29 but May agreed with the bloc’s leaders to delay that date to April 12 if her deal is not approved by the British parliament, and May 22 if it is.

May has refused to give up on her deal passing eventually, noting that the alternatives were unpalatable to her.

She also said that there was no evidence of a majority in parliament for anything except the principle of avoiding an abrupt “no-deal” exit.

“Unless this House agrees to it, ‘no deal’ will not happen. ‘No Brexit’ must not happen,” May said.

She said another referendum, a new agreement, or not leaving the EU were among the alternatives that had no majority.

The bottom line remained that if her deal and ‘no deal’ were rejected, Britain would have to seek a longer delay to Brexit.

“And a ‘slow Brexit’, which extends Article 50 beyond May 22, forces the British people to take part in European elections and gives up control of any of our borders, laws, money or trade, is not a Brexit that will bring the British people together,” May said.

The government would oppose a popular amendment to its motion on the Brexit process in voting scheduled for later on Monday, she added.

That amendment, backed by a wide range of cross-party MPs, would allow Parliament to hold a series of “indicative votes” on possible alternatives to May’s Brexit divorce deal.

Although indicative votes are not binding, the votes are seen as a way to establish whether there is a parliamentary majority for a different approach to Brexit.

If the amendment is passed, May said the government will allow time for the votes to take place but will not commit itself to act upon the results.

Opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would support the amendment, adding that the government was a “national embarrassment” that risked causing a no-deal Brexit.

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Sydney, Australia – How do you respond to a deadly mass shooting if you are a gun rights advocate?

First, “Say nothing.” If media queries persist, go on the “offence, offence, offence”. Smear gun-control groups. “Shame them” with statements such as – “How dare you stand on the graves of those children to put forward your political agenda?”

This was the advice the US’s most powerful gun lobby gave Australia’s One Nation party, according to an Al Jazeera investigation, when representatives of the Australian far-right group sought guidance from the National Rifle Association (NRA) on loosening the Pacific country’s strict gun laws.

The NRA’s playbook on mass shootings came to light during the course of a three-year undercover sting by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit. Rodger Muller, an Australian undercover reporter who infiltrated the gun lobbies in the US and Australia, used a hidden camera to record a series of meetings between representatives of the NRA and One Nation in Washington, DC in September last year.

The secretly filmed footage provides a rare inside view of how the NRA deliberates over mass shootings and seeks to manipulate media coverage to push its pro-gun agenda.

Australia’s One Nation party, led by Senator Pauline Hanson, has long sought to relax the country’s gun laws, which bans almost all automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. The rules, some of the toughest in the world, were introduced in 1996 after a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle killed 35 people in the town of Port Arthur.

Since then, Australia has had no mass shootings where the attackers did not know their victims. However, the NRA has denounced Australia’s laws as “not the definition of common sense”.

‘The graves of those children’

Muller, Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter who posed as a gun-rights advocate, introduced One Nation’s Chief of Staff, James Ashby, and the leader of its Queensland branch, Steve Dickson, to the NRA, and travelled with the pair to Washington, DC last year.

Ashby and Dickson were hoping to secure up to $20m in political donations from supporters of the US gun lobby.

In meetings at the NRA’s Virginia headquarters, officials provided Ashby and Dickson tips to galvanise public support to change Australia’s gun laws and coached the pair on how to respond to a mass shooting.

The best method to handle media inquiries in the wake of a massacre was to “say nothing”, according to Catherine Mortensen, an NRA media liaison officer. But if inquiries persisted, she recommended an offensive communications strategy.

That included deflecting public concern by smearing supporters of gun control.

“Just shame them to the whole idea,” said Lars Dalseide, another member of the NRA’s public relations team. “If your policy, isn’t good enough to stand on itself, how dare you use their deaths to push that forward. How dare you stand on the graves of those children to put forward your political agenda?”

Dickson responded: “I love that, thank you”.

Then, explaining how the NRA manipulated media coverage, Darsedie told One Nation to enlist the services of friendly reporters.

“You have somebody who leans to your side that worked at a newspaper, maybe he was covering city hall or was a crime reporter,” Darseide said.

“We want to print up stories about people who were robbed, had their home invaded, were beaten or whatever it might be and that could have been helped had they had a gun. And that’s going to be the angle on your stories. That’s what he’s got to write. He’s got to put out two to five of those a week.”

‘Outrage of the week’

Another NRA tip was to ghost-write columns for pro-gun law enforcement officials.

“We pitch guest columns in the local papers,” said Mortensen.

“A lot of the times, we’ll write them for like a local sheriff in Wisconsin or whatever. And he’ll draft it or she will help us draft it. We’ll do a lot of the legwork because these people are busy. And this is our job. So, we’ll help them and they’ll submit it with their name on it so that it looks organic. You know, that it’s coming from that community. But we will have a role behind the scenes.”

As for social media, the NRA recommended producing short videos that highlight how useful a gun is for self-defence.

“These are hugely popular and they’re short little snippets. You know, ‘Joe Blow’, cashier at the local convenience store, had his firearm with him and protected himself,” said Mortensen.

“Those are good because they’re short and they kind of get you outraged. We call it like ‘the outrage of the week’.”

During the same meeting, Dickson told the NRA that “African gangs imported to Australia” were committing rape and burglary in the country, including “coming into the house with baseball bats to steal your car”.

To that, Dalseide advised the following: “Every time there’s a story there about the African gangs coming in with baseball bats, a little thing you can put out there, maybe at the top of a tweet or Facebook post or whatever, like with ‘not allowed to defend their home’, ‘not allowed to defend their home’. Boom.”

The NRA officials named in this report, One Nation, Dickson and Ashby did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he believes Robert Mueller acted honorably during his Russia probe — seemingly reversing nearly two years of verbal attacks on the special counsel.

Trump, after giving a prepared statement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked whether Mueller acted honorably throughout his investigation into whether Russia colluded with Trump’s presidential campaign.

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“Yes he did,” the president replied.

Trump for nearly two years has consistently criticized Mueller, claiming his probe is a “witch hunt” and that Mueller’s team is composed of “13 angry Democrats.”

Late last year, Trump offered one of his sharpest attacks, tweeting that the special counsel’s team was a “disgrace to our Nation.”

“The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. “They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts,” he tweeted in November.

“They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t care how many lives the ruin,” Trump continued. “These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!”

Attorney General William Barr on Sunday released a 4-page summary of Mueller’s report which concludes Trump’s presidential campaign did not collude with Russia. Barr’s summary also states that he does not believe there is enough evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

The White House has since said that Trump is completely vindicated and exonerated. Democratic lawmakers, however, have called for the full report to be released.

Trump has previously said Mueller’s report should be made public, but that he would leave the ultimate decision on its release up to Barr. The president repeated that position Monday during an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office.

“It wouldn’t bother me at all,” Trump said when asked about releasing the Mueller report. “It’s up to the attorney general. It wouldn’t bother me at all.”

Despite Trump’s remarks that Mueller was honorable, the president dodged questions on whether he still believes the probe was a “witch hunt,” the label he affixed to the investigation from its beginning.

“It lasted a long time, we are glad it’s over. It’s 100 percent the way it should have been,” Trump said.

Asked whether he was thinking about pardoning anyone who was charged within the Russia probe, Trump replied: “Haven’t thought about it.”

Trump has expressed his disappointment that his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty of tax fraud, bank fraud and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account. The president has not ruled out a pardon for Manafort.

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate, was also indicted under Mueller’s probe. Stone has said he has not asked for a pardon from Trump.

The president, however, blasted “people out there who have done some very, very evil things” related to the Mueller probe. He did not say specifically who, but called on those unnamed people to be scrutinized.

“What they did, there was a false narrative. It was a terrible thing. We can never let this happen to another president again,” he said. “I can tell you that. I say very strongly.”

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