What can the UK learn from Italian migration management?

Spoiler: absolutely nothing

The Times and other media outlets are reporting that Keir Starmer is on a visit to Italy to see what the UK can learn from Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister.

The “as eight more Channel migrants die” bit has tipped me over the edge.

Should the UK learn from Italy?

Firstly, there is nothing that the UK should learn from a far-right, post-fascist party leader, albeit one who seems to have behaved somewhat more moderately in power than some expected.

Successive Italian governments have treated refugees abysmally. And around 24,000 migrants have drowned attempting the central Mediterranean route since 2014 according to the International Organisation for Migration’s Missing Migrants website. I would hope that there is nothing that we’d like to emulate about that here in the UK. Comparatively, there have been very few deaths in the Channel. Maybe the Italians could learn a thing or two from us about conducting effective search and rescue.

But that is unfair on the Italians, in fact. The Mediterranean and the Channel are two very different bodies of water. And this leads me to my second point.

Could the UK learn from Italy?

Even aside from the morality of emulating a post-fascist party leader and a state that has seen 24,000 drown trying to reach its shores in a ten year period, there is the question of how far the UK could apply Italian migration management methods.

There are two different dimensions to the Italian response.

Pull back to Libya

One is to promote “pull back” operations by the states from which migrants depart. This strategy was adopted in response to rulings by the European Court of Human Rights that made clear that Italian vessels would become responsible for at least a basic assessment of the safety of return of a person intercepted at sea. The European Convention on Human Rights has no writ in Libya, however. Instead, the Italian government pays the Libyans to prevent departure and intercept at sea before small vessels get too far.

To get a good understanding of how badly the Libyans treat the migrants they intercept, you need to read Sally Hayden’s My Fourth Time, We Drowned. It’s properly grim.

Tow to Albania

The second dimension is the new arrangement with Albania, which has not started operating yet I think. The idea behind this is that a boat intercepted in the Mediterranean will be physically towed to Albania and the passengers disembarked there instead of Italy. Asylum claims will then be assessed in Albania and any recognised refugees will be admitted to Italy. Responsibility for what to do with those whose claims are rejected will lie with Albania.

This is far more likely to be compliant with the ECHR and with maritime law on search and rescue, which requires disembarkation in a safe place. Which Libya obviously is not.

It’s also not the same as the previous UK government’s Rwanda plan, which was to remove migrants after they arrived in the UK and then export them to Rwanda permanently with any recognised refugees not being eligible for admission to the UK.

Neither approach can work for the UK

Italy has a highly asymmetric relationship with both Libya and Albania. Italy is able to pay both of them lots of money and both states are very happy to accept that money. By entering into an arrangement with them, Italy also lends them political and diplomatic credibility.

The UK does not have a highly asymmetric relationship with France or the EU. Or, rather, it’s not asymmetric in the direction that the UK might like.

Neither France nor the EU want to be in receipt of migrants deported from the UK. The UK cannot leverage its relationship with either to start conducting pull back operations. Nor are either in need of political or diplomatic credibility lent by the UK. And it is impossible To intercept small boats in the channel and tow them somewhere else. Removing people who have already arrived means detaining them then forcing them onto a plane. That’s really hard and really expensive.

So the chances of the UK learning useful lessons on migration management from Italy look like zero. The headlines fall into the same trap as the last government: creating expectations that it has no means to meet. The headlines might look good to some in the short term but it is very, very bad politics in the long run. Failure to deliver is absolutely not how Keir Starmer’s government wants to be perceived.

This is not to say that a deal cannot be done with France or the EU.

What might work, then?

The UK might be able to rejoin the Dublin scheme, for example. A amended and streamlined version of that system will be coming into effect in the next couple of years. But, if this were on offer from the EU, this would mean Court of Justice of the European Union.

Or some sort of instant return or “beach-return” deal might potentially be reached. This seems unlikely but not impossible. Small boat crossings aren’t great for France either. The build up of migrants in northern France is bad. It costs a lot of money and resources. The loss of life might eventually prompt politicians to get serious.

Finally, I’m not addressing safe routes here. I’ve written before about why I think safe route advocates should be wary about presenting them as a solution to anything. On one level, they are a solution. No Ukrainians are known to have crossed in a small boat. They have no need. They can make use of an uncapped safe route. But safe routes can’t be uncapped, otherwise they basically amount to abolishing the border but for basic security checks. If there is a cap, what happens to those who don’t qualify? From where are applications made? Is there a danger that safe route application points could act as a pull factor into France, for example, and actually increase the numbers wanting to cross the Channel?

For the avoidance of doubt, I’m all in favour of expanding safe routes to claim asylum. But I’m not so sure that they offer a realistic way of ending small boat crossings.

My view is that small boat crossings are now here to stay. The numbers crossing might be influenced by various policies but probably never stopped completely.