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ROME — Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer heaped fulsome praise on his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni for clamping down on migration — despite complaints from his own party back home.
Speaking Monday at a joint press conference in Rome, Starmer said Meloni had made “remarkable progress” in cutting irregular migration — and vowed to learn lessons for his own fledgling Labour government.
“You’ve made remarkable progress working with countries along migration routes as equals to address the drivers of migration at source and to tackle the gangs. And as a result, irregular arrivals to Italy by sea are down 60 per cent since 2022,” Starmer said. “I’m pleased that we’re deepening our cooperation here.”
Starmer is in Rome trying to boost joint-working with Britain’s European allies on border security — a key part of his election promise to Brits to “smash the gangs” he argues are driving irregular migration to the U.K.
Starmer, who is under some pressure from Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK, expressly hopes to learn from Meloni’s hardline immigration policies, which have included plans to send asylum seekers rescued at sea by Italian authorities to Albania while their claims are processed.
The PM confirmed Monday that he and Meloni had discussed Italy’s not-yet-operational Albania scheme. “We’ve discussed the concept of it, along with the prevention piece as well, because the numbers here, as I’ve said, have gone down quite significantly,” he said.
Starmer repeatedly pitched himself as a “pragmatic” leader open to solutions regardless of ideology.
But he stopped short of fully endorsing Meloni’s Albania plans, which have been delayed and are subject to some controversy in Italy.
Starmer added that while his government will look at everything that works, he said Italy’s drop in numbers of seaborne arrivals are “more likely attributable” to the work Meloni’s government had done “upstream” — i.e. trying to tackle the issue at source.
Speaking alongside Starmer — after the pair enjoyed a working lunch earlier Monday — Meloni said the British PM had been “very interested” in her government’s ideas on migration.
Indeed, Starmer’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Monday that the Labour government would “look at anything that works” when asked if ministers could adopt a similar scheme.
Labour came to office with a vow to cancel a more stringent plan inherited from the Tories to permanent settle asylum seekers in Rwanda — a plan that never got off the ground amid successive challenges in the courts.
Left backlash
The praise for Meloni won’t sit well with certain sections of Starmer’s center-left Labour Party. A No. 10 press release on the eve of the trip credited the Italian PM — who won the 2022 election on a populist right-wing platform — with “success with irregular migration” thanks to “tough enforcement and international cooperation.”
Labour MP Kim Johnson told the Guardian that Starmer’s attempts to learn from Italy’s immigration policies were “disturbing.” She said “higher security and draconian deportation measures fail to dissuade desperate people from seeking asylum.”
Starmer insisted his visit to see Meloni marks a “return to British pragmatism.”
“We are pragmatists first and foremost, when we see a challenge, we discuss with our friends and allies the different approaches that are being taken, look at what works,” Starmer said.
Business boost
Away from the hot-button issue of migration, Downing Street — which is pitching Starmer’s tour of European capitals as part of a post-Brexit diplomatic “reset” — talked up £485 million of investment into the U.K. by two large Italian companies, defense giant Leonardo and steel manufacturer Marcegaglia. The new U.K. PM kicked off his day by meeting Italian business leaders over breakfast.
“It is only by resetting our relationships around the world that we can break down the barriers that have been holding the U.K. back for so long,” Starmer said.
