What we know about Starmer's Italy trip in bid to curb migrant crossings
Sir Keir Starmer said 3,000 illegal migrants have already been repatriated on flights from the UK since Labour came into power as he met Italy's Giorgia Meloni to discuss how to tackle small boat crossings.
The prime minister and Martin Hewitt - the UK's new border security commander - met Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy Party, to share intelligence and tactics in a bid to "shut down smuggler routes" and to "smash the gangs" behind them.
Starmer said he'd travelled to Rome as he was "very interested" in the Italian government's strategies, which have seen the number of migrants arriving in Italy by boat fall by 60% since 2022.
While both leaders expressed an interest in law enforcement agencies working in "greater harmony" and to tackle smuggling gangs at source, Starmer would not commit to signing up to a processing deal with Albania as Italy has.
It follows the latest tragedy in the English Channel on Saturday night, in which eight migrants died when the boat they were travelling on got into difficulty off the coast in northern France. Around 1,100 people arrived on Britain's shores in 20 small boats over the weekend, with provisional figures showing 23,533 people have arrived in the UK illegally by sea so far this year.
What we know
One substantive development saw Starmer announce that the UK will give £4m to the "Rome Process".
The project aims to tackle illegal migration at the root through an alliance between Italy, other Mediterranean countries and north African and Middle Eastern nations.
Starmer praised the “remarkable progress” Italy has made in its "upstream" work with countries along migration routes “as equals”, which "on the face of it, appears to have had quite a profound effect on irregular migration into Italy".
“I’ve always made the argument that preventing people leaving their country in the first place is far better than trying to deal with those that have arrived in any of our countries, so I was very interested in that," he added.
The PM took the opportunity to take a swipe at the previous Tory government, hailing today as a return "to British pragmatism" and a "new era in Britain’s relations with the EU".
He described predecessor Rishi Sunak's Rwanda deportation scheme as a "gimmick" that saw £700m spent to "persuade four volunteers to go to Rwanda", claiming that 3,000 illegal migrants have already been repatriated on flights to their countries of origin since Labour came into power on 5 July.
For her part, Meloni stressed the need for greater cooperation between law enforcement agencies across the region and to "ensure our legislation is in greater harmony in the future". She said the "heinous organisations” ferrying people across smuggling routes “are very powerful" and "have long tentacles everywhere”.
However, Starmer's visit has prompted concern from within his own party.
According to the Guardian, Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside and a former member of the home affairs select committee, said the agenda for the bilateral meeting was “disturbing”.
“Meloni’s approach to Albanian migration has been described as a ‘model of mismanagement and a blueprint for abuse’ by Human Rights Watch. It is disturbing that Starmer is seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government."
Labour backbencher Diane Abbott was more blunt, posting on X (formerly Twitter): "Why is [Keir Starrer] meeting with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, a literal fascist, to discuss immigration? What does he hope to learn from her?
Why is @starmer meeting with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, a literal fascist, to discuss immigration? What does he hope to learn from her? pic.twitter.com/nThfvibxAV
— Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) September 16, 2024
In July, Meloni insisted there was "no room" in her party "for racist or antisemitic positions, in the same way as there is no room for nostalgia for the totalitarian systems of the 20th Century, or for any other display of foolish folklore," after members of the party's youth wing were accused of making fascist salutes.
What we don't know
Starmer's revelation that 3,000 people had been deported via plane since coming into power included a claim that this also saw "the single biggest flight that has ever taken off returning people to their country of origin".
The Home Office has refused to provide further details to Yahoo News on how many people were on the flight, when it took off and where it landed.
While Meloni said Starmer was "very interested" in a deal struck between Italy and Albania to allow offshore processing of migrants, the Labour leader did not commit to following suit - leaving it unclear what the prime minister will take from the meeting and apply to the UK's approach to border control.
“We discussed the Albania arrangement – which isn’t up and running yet – we don’t know the outcome of it, but we discussed the concept of it," Meloni said.
Lingering question marks remain over the potential for human rights abuses to the new scheme. When challenged by a reporter about the issue, Meloni said the suggestion was "completely groundless", adding that migrants processed under this scheme would "have the same treatment that they'd have in Lampedusa".
"Our law enforcement is there, our judges are there, our laws, our models... Either you’re saying that Italian and European legislation violates human rights of migrants, or you cannot argue that what Italy is doing in Albania is violating human rights," she added.
Starmer did not offer an opinion on the human rights concerns.
While both leaders hailed the work Italy is carrying out with Tunisia to tackle migration, human rights campaigners have previously raised concerns which weren't addressed in today's conference.
In a report last year, Amnesty International highlighted a "deep institutional, economic and social crisis" in the North African country, since president Kais Saied’s "power grab" in 2021, accusing the leader of "attacks on the rule of law" and "repression of dissent".
It says that "in blocking refugees and migrants from leaving the Tunisian coast" by funding patrols and border security, the Italian government is "turning a blind eye to the Tunisian government’s abuses".
