New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in Rome on Monday to sit down with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni to devise measures to deter unlawful immigrants. The meeting was held a day after one more deadly disaster in the English Channel, which killed eight migrants and pushed the death toll this year to 46.
Although Starmer’s Labour Party gained a thumping victory in July, he has promised to crack down on people smuggling. He asserted his desire to learn how Italy had recently managed to curb migrants’ arrivals, saying that the British polity could benefit from studying Italy’s approach. Previously, the minister met with Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, at a national immigration coordination center.
The passage that migrants take across the Channel continues to be a constant and dangerous threat to the UK. On Saturday, the most thrilling of the days, about 800 people successfully reached Britain through the Channel, thus making it the second-highest in the number of people immigrating this year.
However, while these numbers have remained high, Starmer has sought to differentiate himself from the previous Conservative government’s much-discussed plans for deporting people who arranged their journeys from the UK to Rwanda. At the same time, their asylum applications were being considered.
However, Starmer’s desire seems to be an equivalent strategy to Meloni’s. Italy has recently signed a deal with Albania whereby the former will host and provide shelter to immigrants, who will be processed for asylum, in centers. This plan enables rejected asylum seekers to be removed from their countries of origin while the successful Asylum seekers are granted permission to enter Italy. , there have been concerns within the Labour Party regarding Starmer’s interactions with Meloni, which he found to be a worthy entity to engage with and learn from because many of them consider the current Italian government far-right.
Although critics have taken every opportunity to condemn Starmer for his visit to Italy, he is still gaining sleep over how to solve the migration problem. He pointed out that the decrease in the migrant arrival rate in Italy and linking it with work done in the countries of origin, prevention is, therefore, one of the most effective approaches to combating illegal immigration.
Italy’s Meloni government has also made agreements with Tunisia and Libya in which it provides support in return for action to prevent migrants from crossing into Italy. However, these policies have received criticism from human rights organizations, which observe that they are instrumental in the vice of justified migrants who are repatriated to countries such as Libya.
Nevertheless, Italy has registered a steep decline in migrants this year. From January to September, 44,675 migrants reached Italy by sea in the given year, compared with 125,100 who reached the same country in the first nine months of 2023. This is even as the EU recorded a reduced number of illegal crossings in the last year by 39%.
However, it is essential to note that migration along the West African and Eastern routes has slightly increased, indicating that the issue is complicated and dynamic.
As Starmer struggles to solve the United Kingdom’s migration issues, the measures he will likely pursue in Italy provide a glimpse of what will come. Since the problem of illegal immigration continues to be sensitive in politics, his performance in leading this sector will attract attention from the public.
