UK PM Starmer pledges migration cooperation on Italy trip

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By Alistair Smout and Angelo Amante

ROME (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hailed Italy’s efforts to tackle illegal immigration on Monday, saying the two countries would share intelligence, strategy and work more closely together to “smash” the people smuggling gangs.

At a joint press conference, Starmer said his talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had helped in developing Britain’s approach to tackling illegal immigration, which has increasingly become a focus of anger for some Britons who say rising numbers are further stretching public services.

His meeting with Meloni, following trips to Berlin, Paris and Dublin since he won election in July, was also part of his attempt to improve ties with the European Union, which his team says will also improve coordination to tackle migration.

“What we discussed today is a common challenge … and we’ve discussed in particular … how do you deal with this? (The answer is) by collaborating, cooperating, sharing data, intelligence, etc,” he told a joint press conference,

Starmer said he was “very interested” in Italy’s agreement with Albania which will process some asylum claims offshore, but he said that deal had yet to become operational so his government would wait to see the results.

Instead, he praised Meloni’s work “upstream” to prevent migrants from starting their journeys, which he said had gone a long way towards Italy seeing a 60% drop in irregular arrivals by sea.

Earlier, at the National Coordination Centre for Migration, he also lauded her government’s work in tackling the gangs — something he has charged Martin Hewitt, his new head of the Border Security Command, to deal with.

UNITING EFFORTS AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

“Every week thousands of migrants cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy, to enter Europe illegally, many of them even cross the English Channel … it’s clearly a phenomenon that affects the whole European continent,” said Meloni.

“We agree with Prime Minister Starmer that the first thing we need to do is to intensify the fight against human trafficking, do it by uniting our efforts much more,” she said, adding they needed to “follow the money”.

Underlining the problem, French authorities said on Sunday eight people had died trying to cross the Channel to the UK after their boat got into difficulty, bringing the death toll in attempted crossings to 46 since the start of the year.

Starmer also announced more than 500 million pounds of investment in Britain by Italian companies, including defence firm Leonardo.

Leonardo are involved in the GCAP fighter jet project, a joint venture between Britain, Italy and Japan.

In July, Starmer emphasised the programme’s importance, dampening some speculation it could be axed in a defence review, but he stopped short of guaranteeing continued British involvement.

Defence firms including Leonardo and BAE Systems involved in delivering GCAP have stressed that the project is progressing and they expect it to continue under the new government.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout in Rome, additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan in London;Editing by Elizabeth Piper and Ros Russell)