Can Italian tactics help the UK stop migrant boats?

Standing alongside Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Sir Keir Starmer praised the “remarkable progress” made by her government in tackling irregular migration.

“Italy has shown that we can,” the UK premier said on Monday, after arrivals to Italy fell by 60 per cent in a year.

The question now is whether Italy’s tactics — some of which have been deeply controversial — can be emulated by the UK to stem the flow of small boat crossings.

How has Italy curbed irregular migration?

Under Meloni’s leadership, Italy has stepped up financial and material support to Tunisia and Libya to prod their security forces to crack down on human-smuggling gangs and intercept migrant-laden boats undertaking the Mediterranean crossing. Meloni also persuaded Brussels to follow suit.

Italy has also restricted the activities of humanitarian groups that aid migrants at sea and bring them to Italy, impounding search and rescue boats on 23 occasions.

In addition, Rome unveiled a deal with Albania last year to establish and operate two migrant holding centres, where Italy will process the asylum claims of migrants that its coastguard rescues from the Mediterranean.

People deemed genuine refugees will be taken to Italy, while those deemed economic migrants will be held in the Albanian centres until their deportation.  

How successful has this been?

The number of irregular migrants reaching Italy by sea has dropped sharply to just 44,676 people so far this year, compared with 128,815 in the same period last year, and against 67,418 in the same period in 2022.

But critics accuse Italy and the EU of turning a blind eye to serious human rights abuses by Tunisian and Libyan authorities against migrants, who mostly come from elsewhere in Africa.

“We are delegating to authoritarian regimes to save people at sea,” said Luca Barana, a migration expert at Rome’s Institute of International Affairs. “One could say ‘repression works’ — but at what cost?”

Barana also expressed scepticism that the current reduction in migrant inflows would be sustained in the long-run, given Italy’s past experience with looking to politically volatile north African neighbours to stop departures. 

“The key point is how long will the co-operation of these third countries continue,” Barana said.

The Albanian centres are yet to start receiving migrants and the effectiveness of the plan is unclear.

Could Italy’s methods help the UK? 

“We have always said we will look at anything that works,” UK home secretary Yvette Cooper said on Monday, adding that the UK could copy the Albania model if it proved “workable”.

Any solutions “have to be workable, they have to be financially viable and they also have to meet international standards”, she said. 

She did say that the UK was looking at a fast track system to repatriate migrants who were not eligible for asylum.

However, there is some scepticism about the logistics, cost and administration involved in offshoring the processing of asylum claims as Italy intends. Potentially, such a plan could help the UK reduce the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, and with it the public visibility of the migration issue.  

The more contentious measures are even harder to emulate. Italy has targeted charities that help rescue migrants at risk of drowning across the Mediterranean. The closest UK equivalent — and there is no suggestion of this — would be curbing the activities of The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity that runs the UK’s lifeboat fleet.

Do EU relations play a role?

Britain is also at a disadvantage to other EU countries since Brexit, when it also opted out of the Dublin agreement, which allows migrants to be sent back to the first place within Europe where they claimed asylum.

But Labour seems determined to re-establish better relations with Europe over migration, potentially opening the way for the UK to rejoin the Dublin arrangement, or its equivalent, and to work more closely with the EU in preventing people crossing the Med, and tackling people smuggling gangs.

While Italy controversially gives financial support to Tunisia and Libya, the UK already has a close relationship with France, the staging post for asylum seekers hoping to reach Britain by boat.

What are the chances of success?

Sir David Normington who was permanent secretary at the Home Office between 2005 and 2011, a period during which Labour was relatively successful in speeding up repatriations and curbing irregular migration, is mildly optimistic. 

He said that while there was no “big ticket deterrent” in current plans, they were “sensible” insofar as they should begin to restore some order to the asylum system.

“If you can get the system working better, if you can get that throughput and people from countries that are relatively safe know they will be sent back quickly, it may help,” he said. 

However, Starmer’s government is up against the desperation of people seeking to reach Britain’s shores. So far this has made curbing irregular migration a game of whack-a-mole, where smugglers quickly find new ways whenever established ones are closed.  

If the government could halve the numbers crossing and prove that it was regaining control of borders, it could begin to change the nature of the public debate around refugees, said Normington.

But he added: “I don’t know how much patience there will be if the numbers don’t start improving by next spring.”