Watch as Starmer meets Italy’s PM in Rome to discuss migrant crossings

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Watch as Sir Keir Starmer meets with Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, in Rome on Monday 16 September.

The pair are expected to discuss migrant boat crossings, with Sir Keir “interested” in learning about Italy’s scheme to send migrants rescued at sea to Albania to process their asylum claims.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, on Monday morning also confirmed the government is looking to Italian-style migration policies in a number of areas, including a deal with Albania and a “major returns” scheme.

“There are four different things that the Italians are doing that we’re interested in,” Ms Cooper told BBC Breakfast.

“The first is the work that they are doing around organised immigration crime. That’s the work that we are substantially gearing up, where we will be doing a huge technology upgrade as well, and where we want to work with Italy, with Germany, with other European countries, with France as well.

“The second thing they’re doing is they’re working with other countries upstream to prevent people leaving North Africa in the first place…working with Tunisia, we think we should be part of those international co-operations as well.

“The third thing they’re doing is major returns. So they’re speeding up returns for those who don’t have a right to be there. We’ve been doing that through the summer as well, so we’ve had a substantial increase in returns for people who don’t have a right to be in the UK, because the rules need to be respected and enforced.

“The fourth thing they’re doing is the Albania programme, but that hasn’t started yet, so we’ll need to see what that does. It’s very different from the Rwanda partnership that the UK government had, and we’ll have to see how that plays out.”