When U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party sailed to power in snap elections earlier this year, his party’s victory represented a repudiation of the hard right policies of the Conservative Party, helmed by Rishi Sunak. So why, when it comes to immigration policy, is Starmer now taking cues from Italy, and a government arguably further to the right than the one he replaced?
For the last two years, Italy has been governed by a political coalition, led by Giorgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy Party, which has roots in neo-fascist parties such as the Italian Social Movement (MSI) from the post-World War II period.
Meloni, in coalition with Matteo Salvini’s League and other parties, including the remnants of Silvio Berlusconi’s machine that have long urged an iron fist against migrants crossing the Mediterranean, was elected primarily on a platform of clamping down on undocumented migration into Italy — and, from there, the broader European Union (EU). At the time, her election, along with the fascist salutes and other fascist iconography utilized by many of her followers, was greeted with widespread dismay by many mainstream European political figures and commentators. But despite Meloni having quoted Mussolini sympathetically in her youth, her election was celebrated by Republican lawmakers in the U.S.
Unlike many far right leaders in Europe, however, as she has tested draconian measures to force down undocumented migration to her country, she has also sought to woo other prominent politicians on the continent from across the political spectrum — and they, in turn, from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, through to populist oppositions leaders in Spain, have sought to woo her. In many ways, with the success of hard right, anti-immigrant parties in European elections earlier this year, she has become the go-to bridge builder, her interactions with other leaders legitimizing the politics of xenophobia, to the horror of groups that work with refugees and asylum seekers. She has become the soft face of the hard right, or what the political commentator John Crace, writing in the Guardian on September 16, termed “the acceptable face of fascism.”
Perhaps the most visceral example of that was Starmer’s recent meeting with Meloni in Rome’s Villa Doria Pamphili to discuss the agreement Italy had reached with Albania to house asylum seekers on Albanian territory while their cases are adjudicated. Meloni has touted this agreement as part of the reason that Italy has brought down undocumented migration by 60 percent in recent years.
Starmer was impressed, calling it “remarkable progress.” Others, however, are less enamored. Human Rights Watch labeled Meloni’s Albania strategy to curtailing immigration a “model of mismanagement” and a “blueprint for abuse,” one that cedes tremendous discretionary powers to government officials in a country that the anti-corruption organization Transparency International deems one of the most corrupt in Europe. Amnesty International denounced the deal as “a stain on the Italian government,” and called its terms “unlawful.”
The U.K. prime minister wasn’t just interested in the Albania option, however; he was also there to discuss Meloni’s strategy of paying African countries to do more to stop boats filled with migrants from leaving their shores for Europe. That, too, is something the new British government is looking into as it seeks to reduce the numbers trying to reach its shores, via dangerous crossings of the English Channel.
As the leader of the Labour Party, Starmer might have thought twice about such a public embrace of Meloni’s positions. Certainly, several of his own members of Parliament expressed deep discomfort at the meeting. But, in the current era, with immigration one of the great fault lines of modern politics in Western countries, Starmer has made a serious effort to reposition the Labour Party to the right of center when it comes to immigration policies. And slowing down so-called irregular entry into the U.K., in a post-Brexit era in which the anti-immigrant Reform Party has been surging in the polls, has come to be seen as something of a benchmark of success for any new prime minister. Boris Johnson boasted in 2019 that he would “bear down on migration” after his election victory. Rishi Sunak staked much of his political fortune on getting a deal with Rwanda up and running that would have allowed Britain to permanently deport certain asylum seekers to Rwanda — where, if they were found to have a credible asylum case, they would ultimately be resettled.
For Starmer, continuity on this issue is worth more, politically, than a sharp break. The British premier minced no words. “Today was a return, if you like, to British pragmatism,” he stated after the meeting.
Starmer’s Labour Party won election over the Conservative Party in July in no small measure by promising to be more efficient, and to have less chaos at the heart of government. While the Conservatives continued to tear themselves apart over the aftereffects of Brexit, running through one leader after the next in the years following the referendum, Starmer promised a more efficient go-it-alone strategy. To the despair of pro-European voices, there was nothing in the Labour manifesto about either rejoining the EU or at least signing up for the freedom of movement provisions of the EU that other external players — including Norway, Switzerland and Iceland — have agreed to. And, while Labour did immediately scrap the Conservatives’ flagship immigration policy of deporting some asylum seekers to Rwanda, the party framed this not as a restoration of rights for asylum seekers but as a cost-cutting measure regarding a policy that had become a legal and financial albatross for the British government.
In fact, on immigration, Starmer has been keen to prove that he is in step with conservative opinion on restricting the number of asylum seekers entering the country. He is pledged to invest tens of millions of pounds in projects aimed to stop undocumented immigration “at source,” and is working with many EU countries on tackling people-smuggling networks. The new Border Security Bill would allow border guards to seize people’s cellphones and other electronic devices even absent reasonable suspicion of a crime having been carried out.
People-smuggling networks are indeed brutal and destructive, so it’s understandable that the government would seek to clamp down on them. But we must not forget that Europe’s draconian crackdown on migration is what sparked the expansion of these networks. And the broader message that Labour is parlaying on immigration is hardly a welcoming one.
At a time when populist figures, from Donald Trump to Meloni, are busy casting stones at asylum seekers, Starmer’s imprimatur of approval for Italy’s hardline approach further corrodes the international asylum system — right at the moment when the needs of refugees and asylees has rarely been greater.
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