Keir and Giorgia: Hand in Hand?

Who would have thought two politicians from supposed different political spectrums would have met in agreement over migration? Sir Keir Starmer flew out to Rome to receive a red carpet and military band welcome from Giorgia Meloni.

Some in the Labour Party MPs have expressed misgivings about Sir Keir meeting the Italian Prime Minister. Giorgia Meloni has made no bones that like Trump before her, she wants to make Italy great again. Maybe not a revived Roman Empire as such, but a nation that is a powerhouse in Europe, if not the world. Ms. Meloni was elected to fix the migration problem, to keep Italy a Christian and European nation. Her party 'The Brothers Of Italy' party is regarded as a party akin to France's National Rally, Germany's AFD, and the UK's Reform.

Ms. Meloni has reduced migrants crossing the Med down to 60%. That may not seem a lot but Italy was getting overwhelmed. Since Meloni has been Prime Minister, she has taken steps to ensure that many migrants do not head for Italy. It seems, with crossings down at least for Italy, migrants and smugglers are not seeing Italy as a welcoming destination. Italians like many Europeans, are not necessarily racist although that exists as well. They just feel their country was taking in too many people. Which in turn puts a strain on infrastructure as we see in the UK. So, Meloni was the answer to many Italian's prayers.

This year has been the worst year for migrant crossing disasters. Boats overloaded have overturned and people drowned in the Channel. Sir Keir has met Meloni to see how the UK could reduce migrant crossings and sometimes deaths in the Channel. Sir Keir promised to deal with migrants crossing before being elected. Scrapping the Rwanda scheme and setting up a Border Control Command to deal with migrants and the crooks exploiting them.

Giorgia Meloni has an agreement with Albania not too dissimilar to the UK's now-defunct Rwanda scheme. Only those migrants that come from known safe countries are going to be sent or have been sent to Albania. Obviously, as with Rwanda and the UK, money has changed hands from the Italians to the Albanians. What Italy will get out of such a scheme remains to be seen.

Does this mean that Sir Keir will copy Ms. Meloni's policy? Agreeing with a second country to send migrants there? Wouldn't that make him a hypocrite though seeing as he scrapped the Rwanda scheme? Well, Mr. Starmer has stated in seeing how Ms. Meloni does things, he is showing good old-fashioned "British pragmatism". Presumably, Mr. Starmer may not be taking a leaf out of Ms. Meloni's book but not rejecting it either.

Sir Keir knows he is up against it because one of his promises was also, to "Stop the boats". Not in the way Sunak did but working with other European countries and working jointly to do this. Mr. Starmer visiting Ms. Meloni is doing exactly that. When you are faced with a problem it matters not what political party you come from. Ms. Meloni and Mr. Starmer met to see what they could do on the subject of migration.

Mr. Starmer knows he is walking a political tightrope over migration. It will be interesting to see what Mr. Starmer does next over migration. With no end in sight to the crossing of migrants, no end to the gangs that exploit them, no end in sight to sinkings and drownings, etc, Sir Keir needs to act and fast. With the recent riots caused by migration rightly or wrongly, despite what he says, Mr. Starmer will have this in his mind too.