Starmer, Meloni Holding Migrant Talks  09/16 06:33

   

   ROME (AP) -- U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is meeting Italian Premier 
Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Monday, as the two very different politicians, from 
left and right, seek common cause to curb migrants reaching their shores by 
boat. The visit comes after at least eight seaborne migrants died off the 
French coast over the weekend.

   Support for Ukraine is also on the agenda for the trip, part of Starmer's 
effort to reset relations with European neighbors after Britain's acrimonious 
2020 departure from the European Union.

   The center-left Labour Party prime minister isn't a natural ally of Meloni, 
who heads the far-right Brothers of Italy party. But migration has climbed the 
U.K. political agenda, and Starmer hopes Italy's tough approach can help him 
stop people fleeing war and poverty trying to cross the English Channel in 
flimsy, overcrowded boats.

   More than 22,000 migrants have made the perilous crossing from France so far 
this year, a slight increase compared to the same period in 2023.

   Several dozen people have perished in attempts, including the eight killed 
when a boat carrying some 60 people ran aground on rocks late Saturday. The 
same day, 14 boats carrying 801 migrants reached Britain.

   Starmer promised "a new era of international enforcement to dismantle these 
networks, protect our shores and bring order to the asylum system."

   "No more gimmicks," he said before his trip to Rome -- a reference to the 
previous Conservative government's scuttled plan to send some asylum-seekers on 
a one-way trip to Rwanda.

   Meloni pledged a crackdown on migration after taking office in 2022, aiming 
to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous 
Mediterranean crossing to Italy. Her nationalist conservative government has 
signed deals with individual African countries to block departures, imposed 
limits on the work of humanitarian rescue ships, cracked down on traffickers 
and taken measures to deter people from setting off.

   Italy also has signed a deal with Albania under which some adult male 
migrants rescued at sea while trying to reach Italy would be taken instead to 
Albania while their asylum claims are processed.

   The number of migrants arriving in Italy by boat in the first half of this 
year was down 60% from 2023, according to the country's Interior Ministry.

   Starmer wants to learn from Italy's mix of tough enforcement and 
international cooperation, though Italy's approach has been criticized by 
refugee groups and others alarmed by Europe's increasingly strict asylum rules, 
growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants.

   The leader of Italy's right-wing League, Matteo Salvin i, who is deputy 
prime minister in Meloni's government, has been accused by prosecutors of 
alleged kidnapping for for his decision to prevent a rescue ship carrying more 
than 100 migrants from landing in Italy when he was interior minister in 2019.

   British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper defended the government's decision to 
seek advice from Italy's right-wing administration, saying "we've always had a 
history of working with governments that have different political parties that 
are not aligned."

   She said the U.K. was interested in Italy's experience in fighting organized 
crime, as well as its deals with countries such as Tunisia to stop migrants' 
journeys before they reach the sea, and its deal with Albania.

   "I don't think it's immoral to go after the criminal gangs," Cooper told the 
BBC. "Quite the opposite. I think it's actually a moral imperative to make sure 
that we are pursuing the criminal gangs who are putting lives at risk."

   Starmer toured Italy's National Coordination Center for Immigration in Rome 
with newly appointed U.K. Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt. The 
government says Hewitt, a former head of Britain's National Police Chiefs' 
Council, will work with law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the U.K. 
and across Europe to tackle-people smuggling networks.

   Soon after being elected in July, Starmer scrapped the Conservatives' 
contentious plan to send asylum-seekers who cross the Channel to Rwanda, about 
4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) away, with no chance of returning to the U.K. 
even if their refugee claims were successful.

   The Conservatives said the deportation plan would act as a deterrent, but 
refugee and human rights groups called it unethical, judges ruled it illegal 
and Starmer dismissed it as an expensive gimmick. He has, though, expressed an 
interest in striking agreements like the one Italy has with Albania that would 
see asylum-seekers sent temporarily to another country.

   The Rome trip follows visits to Paris, Berlin and Dublin during Starmer's 
first weeks in office -- all part of efforts to restore ties with EU neighbors 
that have been frayed by Brexit. Starmer has ruled out rejoining the now 
27-nation bloc, but is keen for a closer relationship on security and other 
issues.

   Ukraine will also feature in his talks with the Italian government, which 
holds the presidency of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations this 
year.

   Unlike some politicians on the European right, Meloni is a staunch supporter 
of Ukraine. Starmer meets her after returning from Washington, where he and 
U.S. President Joe Biden discussed Ukraine's plea to use Western-supplied 
missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia.

   Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing allies to allow 
his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites inside 
Russia as Moscow steps up assaults on Ukraine's electricity grid and utilities 
before winter. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that would mean NATO 
countries "are at war with Russia."

   So far, the U.S. hasn't announced a change to its policy of allowing Kyiv to 
use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia's border 
with Ukraine.