You can do little but laugh at the absurdity of the world when a top Left-wing human rights barrister such as Keir Starmer flies to Rome to seek the advice of Right-wing Giorgia Meloni on how best to offshore migrants Rwanda-style, except in Italy’s case, it’s in Albania.
Sir Keir famously cancelled the Tory scheme to offshore illegal immigrants to the UK to Rwanda as soon as he came to power, calling it a gimmick. Yet here he is on Monday in Rome talking to Italy's prime minister – often defined abroad as the heir to Mussolini – about among other things her similar scheme to offshore up to 36,000 migrants a year to Albania, which is due to launch at the end of this month. It will make Italy the first European country to offshore migrants to a non-EU country.
The pair have already met once – in July – so he is obviously not in the least bit worried by the relentlessly adverse media coverage Meloni gets. Unlike many in his party who are not just worried but perplexed, like the backbencher who wondered why a Labour prime minister was “seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government”. In truth, regardless of what most media and many politicians say, Meloni's party – Brothers of Italy – which she co-founded as a conservative party in 2012 – descends from a defunct post-fascist party that decades ago had renounced its fascist roots in the same way as – for example – Starmer's own Labour Party renounced Clause 4 when Tony Blair was in charge.
Asked how the UK could replicate Italy’s deal with Albania, Sir Keir told reporters today in Rome: “I’m here to have discussions [...] about how we deal with unlawful migration. Here there’s been some quite dramatic reductions."
Well, there was no need to go to Rome to find out. The solution to the European migrant crisis as anyone with half a brain knows – and as Meloni has insisted since she became prime minister in September 2022 – is dead simple: you must stop migrants setting off from north Africa for Europe. Trying to deport them once inside Europe is a lost cause. Meloni spent much of the first half of 2023 cajoling her European partners and eliciting the support of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from Germany's centre-right CDU, to sign deals with north African countries – in particular Tunisia – to pay them to stop the people-smuggler boats setting off, or else once at sea to take their passengers back.
Thanks to last summer's Meloni-orchestrated EU deal with Tunisia – the main departure point for migrants in the central Mediterranean – there has been a dramatic fall in migrant arrivals to Italy. They are down 65 per cent. Last year, a near-record 157,652 migrants reached Italy by sea which was the third highest number after 2014 (171,100) and 2016 (181,436) – this year so far "only" 41,000 did so.
The deal is worth roughly €1 billion (£840 million) in trade and investment plus €100 million to the Tunisian coastguard. A similar deal was signed with Egypt. There were already deals with Libya to finance and equip its coastguard. From a human rights point of view stopping migrants who claim to be refugees from leaving countries that if not actually at war are hellholes such as Tunisia and Libya is problematic to put it mildly, as Sir Keir will know only too well.
But it is important to be clear. Most migrants are economic migrants not refugees. The top country of origin of migrant boat people to Italy this year is Bangladesh. As for the Albania scheme, it cannot be argued, as was ruled by the supreme court with Rwanda, that it is not a safe country even though its politics are dubious. Furthermore, only migrants from countries accepted as safe – so therefore by definition not usually refugees – will be taken there. This will make processing asylum applications and deportation easier.
The aim is to process 3,000 migrants a month. Those whose asylum applications are successful will be taken to Italy. The Albania scheme will also act as a fantastic deterrent. Sir Keir, however, though he may think it a brilliant idea in the practical sense, will find it hard to give it his blessing as a top-flight human rights lawyer. His former colleagues may have his guts for garters.
