Starmer ‘very interested’ in Italy’s plan to offshore asylum applications in Albania, says Meloni – as it happened

Italy and the UK may be able to extend the work done by law enforcement agencies. And there may be scope for making sure their legislation is “in greater harmony” in the future, she says.

The traffickers work internationally, she says. She says:

No nation by itself can be effective in dismantling these networks of traffickers.

On Albania, she says Starmer was “very interested” in the Italian plan to process asylum applications offshore in Albania.

She says the programme has not started. But it may be delayed for a few weeks, she says.

UPDATE: Meloni said:

Albania, well, I have seen that the prime minister was very interested in what we are doing – but he should be the one to speak about this.

The model that the Italian government has conceived focuses on processing asylum applications for those immigrants who disembark within Italian or EU legislation or European legislation in a foreign country.

That was a model that was never experimented with before. If it works, as I hope it will, this can become a new way, really, to deal with migration flow.

Also because of the element of deterrence that this creates …

We have been working on this project rigorously. From what I understand, it will take a few weeks before it is perfect.

It would have been better if it has started earlier. I know that the world is watching us. Therefore I think we have to do this in the best possible way. And if we need a few extra days, as I was OK with this a few weeks ago, I will be OK with this now as well. But we are talking about a few weeks.

Giorgia Meloni said, as the UK vowed to send the nation £4million to support its controversial crackdown on illegal migration. As Aletha Adu reports, while the prime minister agreed with Meloni, stressing how important their deep relationship was, Starmer indicated that he was more interested in Italy’s strategy stopping migrants from reaching the country than its Albania deal, which Meloni said is a few weeks away from completion. The pair however, put migration at the top of their discussions, which also included topics around economic growth on Tuesday, before they were photographed joking and smiling through the gardens of the Villa Doria Pamphilj in Rome. The millions of pounds the UK will send to Italy will contribute to the Rome process, which is the Italian government’s project to tackle the root causes of irregular migration.

• Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has avoided saying whether he views his party as more leftwing or rightwing than Labour. (See 3.39pm.) In interview before he wraps up the Lib Dem conference with his big speech tomorrow, Davey also said he wanted his party to be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories are. (See 5.15pm.)

here, and the full motion that was approved is here.

The Lib Dems summarise the policy like this:

Liberal Democrats have a comprehensive plan to build a better politics, starting with a fair voting system so no one’s vote is wasted:

-Replace first past the post with proportional representation via STV for UK General Elections and local elections in England.

-Ensure that the UK has an automatic system of inclusion on the electoral register.

-Protect and strengthen the Electoral Commission, including by repealing the Government’s power to designate a strategy and policy statement for the Commission.

-Scrap the Conservatives’ Voter ID scheme.

-Enable all UK citizens living abroad to vote for MPs in separate overseas constituencies, and to participate in UK referendums.

-Give young people the right to vote in the first election after their 16th birthday, for UK general elections and referendums, and local elections in England.

There is a full list of the conference motions passed today on the @LibDemConf feed on X. Wordings for the motions are in the conference agenda.

a report claimed that Keir Starmer wants a vote on a private member’s bill to allow assisted dying before Christmas. But, in an interview with Sky News, Davey said that MPs should take their time and have a “more considered” debate. And he explained why, for personal reasons, he was sceptical about the case for changing the law. He said:

This is a vote that doesn’t go along party lines. I know the people in my party would be very much in favour of it. I have to say personally, I have some concerns. When it came to parliament, quite a long time ago, I went against proceeding with assisted dying and my concerns are both quite personal.

I cared for my mother as a teenager when she was dying of bone cancer. And I saw someone with a very painful disease. And by nursing, given palliative care, she was able to enjoy life and be with us, that’s what she wanted to be.

Now I accept every case might be different. But here’s my other concern, which I want to listen to the debate about, is the pressure it could put on elderly people. Not pressure coming from necessarily from the relatives, but from them inside internally, which they may not express.

I think a situation where healthy people might think they are a burden and then proceed with this is a huge worry and I think we should focus on that.

In 2015 MPs voted overwhelmingly against changing the law to allow assisted dying. But the composition of parliament, and social attitudes, have changed since then, and it is thought there would now be a majority in favour. Starmer has said that MPs should have a free vote on the issue, and that he personally would be in favour of an assisted dying law, subject to certain safeguards.

Liberal Democrats to be a better opposition to Labour than the Conservatives are. In an interview with Chris Mason, he explained:

There is no doubt that if [Labour] don’t listen to criticism, they can push things through, but that would make a very bad government.

What our democracy needs is good opposition. So we can check the government, show where making mistakes, scrutinise them properly.

And what I want for the Liberal Democrats in this parliament is to be the best opposition. I think we can be a much better opposition [than] the Conservatives, who are pretty divided, whose credibility on health and care is shot through – they’ve got none at all. Frankly, their position and their record on the economy means they have no credibility on the economy either.

So this country, our parliament, needs a party that has credibility on the economy, credibility on health and care. We’re that party and with 72 MPS, we will get our voice heard.

announced on Friday night.

Speaking to PA Media today, Benn said:

This is a major international football tournament and we can’t be in the position where the country says we are going to build that stadium and then not be able to deliver it.

The risk was too great and reluctantly we came to the conclusion that the project could not go ahead.

Where does the blame lie? Well, I would point out that in the 18 months between the awarding of the tournament to the UK and Ireland and July 4, the day of the general election, the last government talked a lot, did absolutely nothing to progress the project at all, which is why we were left with what turned out to be an impossible situation.

I thought it was right, Lisa Nandy the culture secretary thought it was right, that we let people know as swiftly as possible once the decision had been made because we have now got to take stock about how to take forward the rebuilding of Casement, albeit in a very different form.

on his Substack blog about what the UK can learn from how Italy deals with irregular migration. His conclusion? Almost nothing.

Here is an extract explaining why he thinks this.

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.

10.53am.)

In a statement issued by CCHQ, before Starmer’s press conference in Rome, Andrew Griffith, the shadow science secretary, said:

It beggars belief that the prime minister thinks it’s acceptable that pensioners on £13,000 a year can afford to heat their home when he earns 12 times that but apparently can’t afford to clothe himself or his wife.

While his top team want a taxpayer-funded clothes budget to look sharp, people across the country are forced to make tough choices in the face of Labour’s damaging decisions.

CCHQ also said that a Conservative MP it did not name has written to the parliamentary commissioner for standards calling for an investigation into Starmer and the “scandal” that a gift of clothes for his wife was not initially disclosed in the register. The letter says: “There must be a full investigation into this scandal given this is not the first instance of the prime minister failing to declare donations and abiding by parliamentary rules.”

2.06pm.)

But, as Adam Bienkov from Byline Times points out, Amnesty International issued a statement earlier in the summer condemning Italy’s treatment of asylum seekers.

In the statement Amnesty International said:

These conditions [in detention centres] violate people’s right to dignity and must be improved by the Italian authorities. Plans to build new centres in Italy, combined with the introduction of mandatory border procedures under the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and the upcoming implementation of the Italy-Albania agreement, make action ever more urgent to prevent further violations of international law that will affect an increasing number of people.

Detention should be a measure of last resort. However, at the centres we visited, we met individuals who should never have been detained: those with serious mental issues or seeking asylum due to their sexual orientation or political activism, but who come from countries Italy has arbitrarily defined as safe.

1.04pm). He used the phrase in an interview where Justin Webb was trying to get him to explain whether he saw the Lib Dems as being to the right or to the left of Labour. Davey refused to choose, saying he did not see politics in those terms.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for a substantial increase in health spending, funded by higher taxes largely on the wealthy, companies and banks, and most analysts would describe that position as being more leftwing than Labour. Webb said most Lib Dem policies involved spending more money, and he asked Davey if that meant the Lib Dems would be opposing Labour from the left.

Davey replied:

No, I don’t think like that at all.

I don’t think the health service is a left/right issue. We need reforms, and we want to make sure those reforms work.

Davey also argued that, if social care was improved in line with Lib Dem proposals, that might take pressure off the NHS (saving money, he implied).

Webb then asked him if he could identify any issues where the Lib Dems were opposing Labour from the right.

Davey replied: “Well, it depends on what you think on the economy.”

He said the Lib Dems were more pro-European than Labour, and were calling for the UK to rejoin the single market. He said he did not really see that as a left/right issue, but he said the Lib Dems were “pro-trade”, implying that was arguably a more rightwing position than Labour’s.

Webb then asked if Davey was worried that his party might end up opposing Labour on grounds that would not appeal to the former Tory voters who backed the Lib Dems for the first time in dozens of Tory seats they won at the election. Asked if he thought that was a potential problem for his party, Davey replied:

I genuinely don’t. We had hundreds of thousands, millions of conversations during the general action with people in those areas that we won from the Conservatives. And what was striking was we talked to a lot of people who’d been lifelong Conservatives, who completely lost faith in the Conservative party. They felt the party moved away from respect for law and order, for freedom, for decency, for compassion, and they saw those values really strong in the Liberal Democrats.

So I think we’ve seen a shift to us on a values basis which is quite profound.

the Rome Process, the Italian government’s project to tackle the root causes of irregular migration.

The UK and Italy have also agreed to work more closely to tackle illicit financial flows linked to organised immigration crime and share intelligence to disrupt the maritime equipment supply chains used by vile people smuggling gangs.

The two leaders also agreed to deepen their defence co-operation by confirming that Italian army and navy will participate in UK carrier strike group operations in the Indo-Pacific next year.

a press release with more details. It says:

Today’s confirmed investments include:

-Leonardo, one of the world’s leading defence, aerospace and security companies, will invest £435m in 2024, to be spent at their Yeovil site, and in technology development and research programmes across the UK. It operates 8 major sites in the UK, supporting 8,000 employees.

-Marcegaglia, a steel manufacturer, will invest £50m in Sheffield to build a new clean steel electric arc furnace, creating 50 new jobs.

No 10 said the investments would support jobs and drive growth.

The press notice also includes this endorsement from Stefano Pontecorvo, chairman of Leonardo.

It is clear that the prime minister represents a pronounced change in approach for the UK and its relationship with the European Union. Leonardo’s presence in the UK is underpinned by transnational collaboration at a governmental level, which also supports cooperation at an industrial level.

I have beefed up some of the earlier posts with direct quotes from the press conference. You may need to refresh the page to get them to show up.

2.04pm.)

UPDATE: Starmer said:

Rather than a gimmick, which, as you know, cost £700 million to persuade four volunteers to go to Rwanda, we have gone down the road of pragmatism.

Already we have returned over 3,000 people by flights. So, the flights actually did get off under this government, not to Rwanda, but back to countries of origin, carrying with them 3,000 people who shouldn’t be here, including the single biggest flight that has ever taken off, returning people to their country of origin.

That’s why we’re working so intently on the Border Security Command, which is intended to take down the gangs that are running the vile trade in the first place.

Source: theguardian.com