Sawt Falasteen - UK PM Starmer meets Italy's Meloni for illegal immigration talks

Starmer, whose centre-left Labour Party was elected with a crushing parliamentary majority in July, has vowed to fight illegal immigration, a hot-button topic in British politics for years.

"Here, there's been some quite dramatic reduction (in migrant arrival numbers) so I want to understand how that came about," Starmer said in Rome ahead of his meeting with Meloni.

He was speaking while touring a national immigration coordination centre with Italy's interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi.

Starmer was received with a welcome ceremony at 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT) at Rome's Villa Doria Pamphili before his meeting with Meloni.

Far-right riots shook cities and towns across England and Northern Ireland shortly after Starmer's election, the UK's worst unrest since 2011, with mosques and migrant accommodation centres often targeted.

The perilous cross-Channel journeys migrants attempt from northern France have posed a fiendishly difficult problem to solve for successive British prime ministers.

Eight migrants died on Sunday after their overcrowded boat capsized in the Channel between France and England, bringing to 46 the number of people who have lost their lives this year trying to reach British shores.

Around 800 people crossed the Channel on Saturday, the second-highest figure since the start of the year, according to the UK interior ministry.

Starmer has rejected the previous Conservative government's plan to expel all undocumented migrants to Rwanda while their asylum claims are examined.

Instead, UK media say he is interested in the strategy of Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, whose country is on the front line of illegal migration into the European Union.

Italy signed an agreement with Albania in November to open two centres in the Balkan country where undocumented migrants would be housed while their asylum claims are processed.

Italy is to fund and manage the centres, which will be capable of accommodating up to 3,000 migrants who have arrived on Italian shores by boat.

Migrants with rejected asylum claims would be sent back to their country of origin, whereas those with accepted applications will be granted entry to Italy.

That is a key difference from the former UK government's Rwanda scheme, whereby migrants sent to the East African nation could never have settled in Britain irrespective of the outcome of their claim.

- Fewer arriving migrants -

While touring the migrant coordination centre, Starmer said it looked like the lower migrant arrivals to Italy were due to "work that's been done in some of the countries where people are coming from".

"I’ve long believed, by the way, that prevention and stopping people travelling in the first place is one of the best ways to deal with this particular issue," he added.

Starmer's trip to Italy has already spurred criticism, even within his own party.

Labour MP Kim Johnson told The Guardian newspaper it was "disturbing that Starmer is seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government, particularly after the anti-refugee riots and far-right racist terrorism that swept Britain this summer".

The newly appointed chief of the UK's new Border Security Command, Martin Hewitt, was accompanying Starmer during his trip, his office said.

Besides Albania, Meloni's government has also inked a deal with Tunisia, granting aid in exchange for greater efforts to stop Italy-bound migrants who leave the North African country and cross the Mediterranean.

Italy has also renewed a controversial deal with the UN-backed Libyan government in Tripoli, dating from 2017, in which Rome provides training and funding to the Libyan coastguard in order to stem departures of migrants or return to Libya those already at sea.

Human rights groups say the policy pushes thousands of migrants back to Libya to face torture and abuse under arbitrary detention.

Since the start of the year, migrant arrivals to Italy by sea have dropped markedly, according to the interior ministry.

Between January 1 and September 13, 44,675 people arrived in Italy compared to a figure of 125,806 for the same period in 2023.

Across all the EU borders, meanwhile, the number of migrants crossing has dropped by 39 percent, according to border agency Frontex.

But multiple factors are behind these trends, experts say, with many migrants seeking entry into the EU having changed their route.

While the Balkan and Central Mediterranean migration routes saw flows fall significantly this year, by 77 percent and 64 percent respectively, the West African and Eastern land border routes recorded sharp increases, of 123 percent and 193 percent respectively.

Crossings are up 13 percent over the Channel this year, Frontex said.

B.AbuZeid--SF-PST