Sir Keir Starmer has stolen some more of the Conservative Party’s clothes. He committed the theft in broad daylight at the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome, with the help of an Italian accomplice, Giorgia Meloni.
On Monday Starmer and Meloni held a press conference at which with complete shamelessness he displayed Tory pragmatism and insisted it now belongs to him:
“We are pragmatists first and foremost. When we see a challenge we discuss with our friends and allies the different approaches that are being taken, look at what works, and that is the approach that we’ve taken today, and it’s been a very productive day.”
He said he had discussed “irregular migration” with Meloni, and went on to express his admiration for the “remarkable progress” she has made by “working with countries along migration routes as equals”, which has cut arrivals in Italy by sea by 60 per cent since 2022.
Meloni said Starmer had shown “great interest” in the Italian plan to process asylum claims in Albania, and when a journalist suggested this will infringe human rights, she bristled:
“I don’t know what human rights violations you’re referring to, because frankly the jurisdiction of these sanctions in Albania, it’s Italian European jurisdiction, so either you believe that European jurisdiction violates the human rights of migrants or well, I do not know, this accusation, I think it’s completely groundless.”
By saying this she provided welcome covering fire for her guest. Starmer has hitherto been known as a North London human rights lawyer for whom any infringement of the European Convention on Human Rights would be intolerable, but here was the Italian Prime Minister insisting that there is no human rights problem about setting up an extraterritorial processing centre.
Asylum seekers who have their claims heard in Albania will, she said, be treated properly, and “have the same treatment they would have had in Lampedusa or any other hot spot in Italy”.
Meloni, who used to be close to Rishi Sunak, on Monday showed the world, as she strolled in her pink suit with Starmer in the gardens of the Villa Doria Pamphili, that he is her new best friend.
How she laughed at his jokes! One may wonder when Starmer last found such an appreciate audience. As they lingered by a fountain, they pointed at the same things (see photograph above), while on the several occasions they shook hands for the benefit of the photographers, she clasped her shy but obliging English guest for longer than one would have thought necessary for strictly photographic purposes.
The Labour Left is angry. Diane Abbott wishes to know why Starmer went to Rome and met “a literal fascist”.
But Starmer explained during the press conference what he thinks he is doing: “It’s about the politics of pragmatism. The British are very good at pragmatism, it’s what we’re known for over the years.”
For Conservatives, the Starmer-Meloni relationship is difficult. One can, of course, condemn Starmer for abandoning the Rwanda plan, but he claims, in his pragmatic way, that Rwanda was not working.
One cannot condemn him for his keenness to ally himself with Meloni: Sunak did the same. Nor can one reproach him for his interest in Albania: one may recall that only four months ago the last Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, had to return early from a visit to that country because a general election was being called, and said at the time: “Our partnership with Albania is delivering for both our people and playing a key role in tackling illegal migration.”
The Left despise Starmer as a traitor who espoused Corbynite policies in order to become Labour leader, and now governs the country as the continuation of the Conservatives by other means.
Tories fear this may be true, and can see it may be easier for Starmer, because of his Leftie lawyer background, than it was for them, to evade or nullify the operation of human rights law as it affects migration policy.
Starmer had good reason, including public alarm, to commend severe sentences for those who took part in the recent riots. No recent Tory leader could have done more.
And he has good reason, including public alarm, to crack down hard on “irregular migration”, as he calls it. When he talks of “smashing the gangs” he again uses strong language.
Conservatives may quite understandably scoff at this, and point out that the recent appointment of Martin Hewitt as Border Security Commander does not on its own achieve anything.
But Starmer took Hewitt with him to Rome, to talk to the Italians in order “to share intelligence, share tactics, shut down smuggler routes and smash the gangs”.
While one may question how much good this will do, one does not immediately feel inclined to scoff. Some good may result.
So too as Hewitt sets out, with Starmer’s backing, to get the different parts of the British system to pull together.
The British press is just now obsessed by Victoria Starmer’s clothes. Only by such vigilance is our political class kept in some sort of order.
But the Prime Minister may meanwhile benefit from being under-estimated. He has discovered the word “pragmatism”, understood to mean “what works”, and may find in it a purpose for his administration, a safeguard against utopianism, and a corrective to his tendency to sound insufferably high-minded.
