The centre-left Labour Party prime minister isn’t a natural ally of Meloni, who heads the far-right Brothers of Italy party, yet the two sides are hoping to work together to reduce irregular migration to Europe and improve the UK’s relations with the rest of the continent.
Keir Starmer is meeting his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome for talks on how to stem the flow of migrants arriving on their shores by boat, after the UK prime minister said he was “interested” in learning more about Italy’s new migrant deal with Albania.
The visit comes after at least eight seaborne migrants died off the French coast on the weekend.
Support for Ukraine is also on the agenda for the trip, part of Starmer’s effort to reset relations with European neighbours after the UK’s acrimonious 2020 departure from the European Union.
The centre-left Labour Party prime minister isn’t a natural ally of Meloni, who heads the far-right Brothers of Italy party. But migration has climbed the UK political agenda, and Starmer hopes Italy’s tough approach can help him stop people fleeing war and poverty trying to cross the English Channel in flimsy, overcrowded boats.
More than 22,000 migrants have made the perilous crossing from France so far this year, a slight increase compared to the same period in 2023. Several dozen people have perished in the attempt, including the eight killed when a boat carrying some 60 people ran aground on rocks late Saturday.
Starmer promised “a new era of international enforcement to dismantle these networks, protect our shores and bring order to the asylum system.”
“No more gimmicks,” he said before his trip to Rome — a reference to the previous Conservative government’s scuttled plan to send some asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda.
Meloni pledged a crackdown on migration after taking office in 2022, aiming to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Italy.
Her nationalist conservative government has signed deals with individual African countries to block departures, imposed limits on the work of humanitarian rescue ships, cracked down on traffickers and taken measures to deter people from setting off.
Italy also has signed a deal with Albania under which some adult male migrants rescued at sea while trying to reach Italy would be taken instead to Albania while their asylum claims are processed.
The number of migrants arriving in Italy by boat in the first half of this year was down 60% from 2023, according to the country’s interior ministry.
Starmer wants to learn from Italy’s mix of tough enforcement and international cooperation. Responding to a question on whether he would seek a similar agreement to the Italy-Albania deal before he headed to Rome, the prime minister said: “Let’s see. It’s in early days, I’m interested in how that works, I think everybody else is.”
Italy’s approach however has been criticised by refugee groups and others alarmed by Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rules, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants.
The leader of Italy’s right-wing League, Matteo Salvini, who is deputy prime minister in Meloni’s government, has been accused by prosecutors of alleged kidnapping for his decision to prevent a rescue ship carrying more than 100 migrants from landing in Italy when he was interior minister in 2019.
Starmer will tour Italy’s national immigration crime coordination centre with newly appointed UK Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt. The government says Hewitt, a former head of the UK’s National Police Chiefs’ Council, will work with law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the UK and across Europe to tackle people-smuggling networks.
ADVERTISEMENTSoon after being elected in July, Starmer scrapped the Conservatives’ contentious plan to send asylum-seekers who cross the Channel to Rwanda, about 6,400 kilometres away, with no chance of returning to the UK even if their refugee claims were successful.
The Conservatives said the deportation plan would act as a deterrent, but refugee and human rights groups called it unethical, judges ruled it illegal and Starmer dismissed it as an expensive gimmick. He has, though, expressed an interest in striking agreements like the one Italy has with Albania that would see asylum-seekers sent temporarily to another country.
The Rome trip follows visits to Paris, Berlin and Dublin during Starmer’s first weeks in office — all part of efforts to restore ties with EU neighbours that have been frayed by Brexit. Starmer has ruled out rejoining the now 27-nation bloc but is keen for a closer relationship on security and other issues.
Ukraine will also feature in his talks with the Italian government, which holds the presidency of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations this year.
ADVERTISEMENTUnlike some politicians on the European right, Meloni is a staunch supporter of Ukraine. Starmer meets her after returning from Washington, where he and US President Joe Biden discussed Ukraine’s plea to use Western-supplied missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing allies to allow his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites inside Russia as Moscow steps up assaults on Ukraine’s electricity grid and utilities before winter. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that would mean NATO countries “are at war with Russia”.
So far, the US hasn’t announced a change to its policy of allowing Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.
Source: Euro News
