Sunak’s new Italian soulmate
Britain and Italy are “very aligned” in values, declared Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this afternoon after signing a memorandum on defence and migrants with Italy’s premier, Giorgia Meloni, writes Caitlin Allen.
The two leaders – who were elected within three days of each other last year – held their first formal bilateral talks at Downing Street today, having met just once before on the margins of COP27 in Egypt last November.
The encounter appears to have been a chummy one, with much to chew over such as policy on immigration.
While both are conservatives, Sunak is more to the centre in comparison to Meloni. However, since being elected last year, Meloni has made big efforts to re-position herself as a mainstream right-winger, having surprised her critics by championing Ukraine and continuing close relations with the EU. This has not stopped critics from accusing the Brothers of Italy party, which she co-founded in 2012, of clinging to nostalgia for a fascist past, embracing, for instance, the tri-color flame symbol associated with Mussolini himself.
The 46-year-old is also anti-abortion and her determination to take on the “LGBT lobby” has resulted in pressure on municipalities not to allow most same-sex couples to register their children.
Yet despite wariness among many European politicians that cosying up to Meloni equates to an endorsement of fascism, she and Sunak seem to have found common ground.
For starters, on Ukraine. Unlike her right-wing coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi – who calls Putin a friend and caused a stir recently by insisting the Kremlin “only wanted to replace Zelensky with a government made up of decent people” – Meloni’s trenchant support for Kyiv has pleasantly surprised NATO allies. Only yesterday, she urged Brussels to speed up Ukraine’s accession process as a reward for its contribution to European security.
Immigration policy is another key area of common interest between the two leaders – and one which almost certainly dominated much of their discussion.
Both have made stopping small boats a top priority. The Italian PM’s incendiary language about an “invasion” of migrants also mimics that used by Sunak’s home secretary, Suella Braverman.
Both leaders have also sought to introduce stricter policies cracking down on asylum seekers. Sunak’s Illegal Migration Bill – which automatically disqualifies anyone who reaches the UK via irregular routes from claiming asylum here – passed its final Commons reading last night. Meanwhile in Rome, in response to the growing number of migrants crossing the Med, Meloni has declared a state of emergency which allows ministers to use special powers to set up detention centres and removes specific protections and humanitarian rights previously given to asylum seekers.
For all the shock that someone as right-wing as Meloni could be elected as leader of a major European power, when it comes to immigration, there is arguably not much separating her from Sunak.
That said, their shared aversion to boat crossings could end up dividing them as much as it unites.
Since January, 20,000 migrants have arrived in Italy from North Africa – four times as many as those entering the UK via the Channel. And many migrants who arrive in Britain have first passed through Italy.
Meloni knows that Italian voters want a government that can persuade Europe to share out migrants and refugees, rather than all asylum seekers having to apply in the country they first arrive in – often Italy or Greece.
Yet, as we know only too well from the countless spats with France’s Emmanuel Macron over Channel crossings, this notion of European countries sharing out the responsibility for refugees doesn’t tend to wash with Westminster.
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