uch was made of Keir Starmer ’ s visit to Rome in September to meet the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni , in part due to the ideological chasm between the two political parties they represent and in part due to the focus of the meeting : immigration .

Throughout the General Election campaign earlier this year , Starmer repeatedly claimed that he would look to “ smash the gangs ” behind the trafficking of people to the UK , but Britain ’ s PM now seems to be tacking even further right , taking tips from a European leader who has links with neofascist political parties .

While Meloni has , since coming to power , tended to govern on the centre-right rather than the far-right , she is still notoriously one of the more conservative leaders in Europe . Many in the media found it strange , and in some cases concerning , that Starmer was making the trip to Rome to speak to Meloni about illegal - or as she calls it irregolare - migration . When asked about this , Starmer made a good point : Italy is one of the G7 , one of the biggest economies in the world and one of the biggest players , outside of France and Germany , in the EU . Why should he not go for a chat ? Furthermore , Italy has seen a 60 % reduction in its illegal migration in recent years , in large part down to the measures put in place under Meloni ’ s premiership . If he is going to go and speak to her , why not at least ask how she did it …?

Albania , “ upstreaming ” and stopping boats from docking are just a number of the frankly disgusting policies that the Italian government has recently implemented in order to reduce the number of “ migranti irregolari ”. The Albania policy was singled out as being of particular interest to the PM by his Italian counterpart in the press conference which followed their meeting on 16 September . This is strange , considering the processing of asylum claims in another sovereign country ( what the Albania plan is ) seems suspiciously similar to the now scrapped Rwanda scheme peddled by the Conservatives , which ended up costing the taxpayer around £ 700 million and only removed four people ( who went voluntarily ). Meloni ’ s Italian policy has been equally unsuccessful and separate court rulings in October and November meant that migrants sent to Albania were returned to Italy .

Another policy singled out was the idea of “ upstreaming ” illegal migration . This , in theory , is the most humane and moral approach to reducing migration ; stopping migrants from wanting to leave their country in the first place . Now , this could be done in a number of ways , namely increasing the foreign aid budget , properly funding international development organisations such as the UNDP , or the approach that Italy has taken - increasing funding for border security , police and army units . In other words , ‘ preventing ’ migrants from leaving , rather than incentivising them to stay .

Not only do these policies sound horrific , Italy has also recently been criticised by the human rights campaigners for being complicit in crimes carried out against migrants , as some who were intercepted on their way to Italy have been sent back to Libya and faced murder , sexual violence , torture and enslavement .

Starmer risks dividing his party over issues like this , especially with such a large parliamentary cohort . The list of gaffes he has made keeps getting longer , and he must not lose sight of the moral high-ground he sought during the election campaign earlier this year , attempting to distinguish himself and his party from the morally bankrupt incumbents . In entertaining migration policies that have been criticised by human rights organisations , he endangers the broad but shallow coalition both in and outside of parliament that enabled him to sweep to a landslide victory only a few months ago .

By Dylan Webster-Deakin ( He / Him ); // Final Year ; Italian and French

Source at : Instagram @ giorgiameloni