Keir Starmer flatters the extreme right

When Keir Starmer cancelled the Tories' disastrous deal on deportations from Rwanda just days after taking office, there was great relief. Many welcomed this seemingly decisive departure from the strategy of the previous government, which sought to distract from its failure to govern by using relentless cruelty towards migrants.

Some even hoped that Labour's campaign – which saw a defecting far-right Conservative MP argue that the Tories were not strict enough on borders – was just a clever electoral maneuver. But as the Labour government pushes ahead with mass deportations and workplace raids, reopens abuse-ridden detention camps and considers bringing Britain back into the fold of a deadly European immigration control regime, it looks like Starmer's campaign should be taken literally.

This week, the prime minister is in Italy, meeting with Giorgia Meloni, a politician who came to power at the head of a party founded after World War II to uphold the legacy of Benito Mussolini and Italian fascism. Starmer says he wants to learn from and work with Meloni's approach to migration.

This happened while Italy and Albania signed an agreement that provides for the construction of detention camps on Albanian territory. Third-country nationals rescued in the Mediterranean will be taken there to have their asylum applications processed extraterritorially and possibly be expelled. Meloni described the protocol as a “historic agreement for the entire EU”.

Human rights groups warn that the arbitrary detention legitimized by the agreement could lead to potential human rights violations, particularly in relation to legal aid and asylum rights. Asylum hearings will be held remotely and overstaffed Italian authorities will be tasked with processing applications from Albania in just 28 days, further limiting due process.

During a visit to the centres in Albania this week, we saw the rapid construction of a seven-metre-high wall that surrounds the detention centres. According to the guards who patrol the camps, “this will ensure that no migrant detained there can escape.”

The agreement with Albania is the latest in a series of Italian moves that have worsened the already dire situation in the central Mediterranean, the world's deadliest migration route. Meloni took office promising a “naval blockade” against migrants. Last year, one of our own was on a civilian sea rescue ship that was arrested and fined for allegedly saving too many lives.

Italy routinely uses arbitrary detention, the assignment of distant safe ports, bureaucratic harassment or outright arrest to prevent people from saving lives at sea. The rhetoric about cracking down on smuggling gangs seems simple. But in reality, people seeking safety, people providing assistance and people providing basic services are routinely criminalised as smugglers.

The case of Ibrahima Bah, a teenager from Senegal who was convicted of “illegal” entry into the UK and manslaughter, reminds us of the consequences of criminalising people who migrate as smugglers. Bah was arrested in December 2022 and later sentenced to nine years in prison by British authorities for driving a boat across the Channel.

The tragic sinking of the boat resulted in the death of four people. Since there were hardly any navigable and legal routes, Ibrahima was forced to steer the boat in exchange for free passage for himself and his brother. Such cases are common in Italy.

It gets worse. Starmer and his foreign minister David Lammy have also indicated that they want to be inspired by the European agreements with Libya and Syria.