Starmer is running out of options to stop the boats

Could Britain copy Italy’s plan to use Albania for the offshore processing of asylum seekers? Keir Starmer has reportedly said he is interested, during a visit to see Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Under her premiership, Italy has seen a decline in illegal immigration, with a 62 per cent drop in arrivals as of July this year compared to the same period last year. Those numbers must look attractive to the government, which has seen illegal immigration increase in their short term in office so far.

Although that might sound tempting, so far none of the facilities in Albania have opened. The deal was only struck last year and they should open this autumn, although that was delayed from the original plan to open them this summer. Instead, Italy’s success has been because of the Mattei Plan, which involves investing billions in Africa. The idea is that by tackling the dysfunction and poverty of these countries, the reasons for emigration could be neutralised.

However, Italy also pays the Libyans for what are called “pull backs”. The ECHR means that any refugee vessel rescued by an Italian ship will likely be taken to the mainland, where they have a good chance of being able to stay, no matter how genuine their case is. Therefore the Libyans are paid to stop the vessels leaving or to intercept them while they are still in their waters. There is no ECHR in Libya, and the detention centres there are notorious for bad conditions.

Indeed, one of the ironies of the debate over Britain’s Rwanda plan was that the UN already does offshore processing in Rwanda because they consider it safer to send asylum seekers there rather than leave them in Libya. All of this is of limited utility to Britain however. Despite extensive co-operation and millions in funding from Britain, France is not going to “pull back” boats in the Channel and the ECHR very much applies there.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has previously suggested something similar to the Mattei Plan, to invest aid money in the countries where asylum seekers come from in an effort to reduce the desire to come here. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to work. Not only are the sums under discussion far too small, most of the countries where our asylum seekers come from either cannot be invested in, like Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, or are already prospering, like Vietnam.

What about the Albanian offshoring plan? It envisions intercepting boats in Italian waters and then taking them to Albania, where they can be processed. Much like the suggestion that Germany could use Rwanda for processing some asylum seekers, which was withdrawn in the face of media hostility, this is only about processing and not a permanent removal. So, if the asylum seeker is successful in their claim then they could expect to be transferred back to Italy.

As Britain has an unusually high rate of asylum grants, this would be no deterrent at all. Adding an extra step to the process and paying more to shuffle asylum seekers around would be foolish when the public is fed up with broken promises and high costs of asylum.

Despite protests from some on the Labour backbenches that Starmer is meeting a “fascist”, which is hard to square with the pink-clad Meloni and her predilection for Aperol Spritzes in meetings, there seems little that Starmer can learn from Italy.

That leaves the government in a tricky situation. Although they have finally recruited a Border Security Commander to lead their plan to smash the gangs, their interest in Italy suggests they aren’t as confident in that strategy as they might have claimed.

By cancelling the Rwanda plan and recommitting Britain to the ECHR, they have very little opportunity for effective action. Expansion of human rights law has increasingly narrowed down the options for any government, unless they are willing to challenge it directly.

The Rwanda plan tried to stretch the law as far as possible, without breaking it. It was perhaps inevitable therefore that the government would end up looking at offshoring asylum seekers again. Unfortunately the Italian model has few lessons for Britain. The government has said they are committed to making hard choices: on asylum they may find the choices harder than they want to stomach.