UK PM Starmer to meet Italy's Meloni for illegal immigration talks

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00:00Seema Gupta who joins us from there. Seema, I mean, I pointed out in the introduction there,

00:04I mean, they do seem very unlikely bedfellows, don't they, Starmer and Maloney?

00:11Absolutely. I mean, both representing opposite sides of the political spectrum. But this is

00:16really part of the British Prime Minister, the new Labour Prime Minister, part of his move to

00:22renew ties with European leaders. He's already been to Berlin, Paris, Dublin, and now it's the

00:27turn of Rome. And so even though Miss Maloney represents her far-right Brothers of Italy party,

00:35I think the two of them are facing the same issue of trying to deal with curbing

00:41migrant arrivals, migrants reaching their shores. Now, perhaps the UK are very much interested in

00:48the way in which Italy has approached this issue, the tough approach, but particularly looking at

00:55the plan that Italy has put in place to begin processing adult male migrants in Albania, in a

01:02third country, if you like, in a separate country, not in Italy. And interesting that this is

01:09something that Mr. Starmer is looking to explore, to understand how it works, particularly as he

01:15scrapped the plan by the previous Conservative government to do something similar, different,

01:22but similar in terms of processing migrants in the country of Rwanda. That plan he scrapped,

01:28but now he's looking to see how the Italian approach will work. He's also looking to see

01:33how Italy has successfully managed to cut the number of migrant arrivals. In the first half

01:39of this year, there's been a drop of some 60% in terms of migrant arrivals, if you compare the

01:45same period in 2023. That's according to the Interior Ministry here in Italy. And that's

01:50because they've got this tough enforcement in place, but also because of international deals

01:55that Italy and the EU has struck up with countries like Libya and Tunisia in particular. Those are

02:01two countries from which migrants leave to come to Europe and come to Italy in particular. So you have

02:08them boosting up, giving these countries money to boost their border security forces and also to

02:13train their Coast Guard, but also their gas deals, money being exchanged for that. Now, these deals

02:19have been criticised by rights groups saying that this is essentially working with countries

02:24that commit crimes against migrants. They say working with a country like Tunisia, where we've

02:29seen a sharp deterioration in terms of democratic norms. We've seen arrests of lawyers and journalists

02:36in that country. So they question the need to do that. You've got backbenchers in the Labour Party,

02:41as well as NGOs questioning the need to look to a far-right government in terms of dealing with

02:48this issue. A far-right government in which a coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, the Deputy

02:53Prime Minister, also himself being accused by prosecutors of allegedly kidnapping when he

02:59prevented a migrant rescue ship from landing in Italy in 2019 when he was then Interior Minister.

03:05So clearly a lot of differences between the two sides, but Mr Starmer says he wants to learn more

03:11about the Italian approach. And Sima, of course, more generally, Keir Starmer hoping that this is

03:16going to be the start of a prosperous relationship between the two?

03:22Yes, but a very different one. I mean, one just has to look at his predecessor, Rishi Sunak.

03:28He and Miss Maloney were clearly good partners, really, both right-wing. They had a political

03:35chemistry, if you like. It seemed like they got along really well. We saw them together at the

03:40G7 Leaders Summit here in Italy. Really a good chemistry there. So this is really a reset. But

03:46both sides know that they need support in the area of migration. But it's not just that that

03:52they will be discussing. We understand that they will also be touching on the issue of Ukraine.

03:57Miss Maloney, a strong supporter of Ukraine and their fight against Russia. And we understand that

04:05Keir Starmer will be discussing with her perhaps an extension of his discussions that he had with

04:10the US President Joe Biden about this idea of using Western-supplied weapons that might be used

04:17across on Russian territory. So perhaps those are some of the other issues that these two leaders

04:23will be discussing in this face-to-face meeting. Sima, thanks very much. Sima Gupta, our correspondent

04:28talking to us live there from Rome.

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