PM accused of seeking to copy far right on migration

MPs and NGOs alarmed by Starmer meeting with Italy's Meloni on asylum

- Aletha Adu, Rajeev Syal

Keir Starmer is under pressure from Labour backbenchers and NGOs to distance his government from Giorgia Meloni's hard-right immigration policies on the eve of bilateral talks in Rome.

After the foreign secretary, David Lammy, said Britain would consider copying Italy's plans to process asylum applicants in a third country such as Albania, one backbencher questioned why a Labour administration was "seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government".

The Refugee Council and Amnesty International have called on Starmer to avoid any more "gimmicks" following the failure of the last government to implement the Rwanda scheme.

The developments come after eight men died while trying to cross the English Channel in the early hours of yesterday morning.

A 10-month-old baby suffering from suspected hypothermia was among 53 people rescued off the coast of Ambleteuse in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France when their dinghy was "smashed" onto rocks.

The prime minister will head to Rome today, to examine how Meloni's government has cut the number of migrants arriving in small boats across the Mediterranean by almost two-thirds in the past year, from 118,000 to 44,500.

Meloni has focused on financial deals with North African countries such as Tunisia and Libya to improve their border security so they can stop boats setting off. This autumn she will go further by opening a holding centre in Albania, where asylum seekers picked up at sea by Italian rescue ships will be taken while their asylum applications are processed.