PM's Albania trip shows tricky path on migration

Vocabulary: 298, Words: 541

1A few days on from seeking to sound muscular about his desire to squeeze legal migration, the prime minister is in Albania focusing on illegal arrivals.

2The Balkan country has provided a rare British success story in the incredibly difficult politics and diplomacy of attempting to cut illegal migration.

3In 2022, around 12,500 Albanians crossed the English Channel by small boat, but the number has since shrunk massively.

4The last government, and latterly this one, set up campaigns to put people off attempting the journey and far more migrants have been returned.

5Sir Keir Starmer wanted to lean into this inherited success from the Conservatives, and sought to make a virtue of being the first British prime minister to make an official visit to the country.

6But he also wanted to talk up negotiations with a handful of unnamed European countries that might temporarily take failed asylum seekers who have exhausted all avenues to remain in the UK.

7Downing Street told reporters the move could stop failed asylum seekers stalling deportation "using various tactics, whether it's losing their paperwork or using other tactics to frustrate their removal".

8The PM's spokesman added it would ensure they also cannot make their removal harder "by using tactics such as starting a family".

9Rwanda comparison

10It is an interesting idea, which draws initial parallels with the last government's plan to send some migrants to Rwanda, but is different.

11The Conservatives wanted to send people to the African country immediately after their arrival in the UK, to lodge an asylum claim there or another "safe" country.

12They argued, given the numbers arriving on small boats, a radical policy shift was needed to put people off.

13Labour argued it was a vastly expensive waste of money, and scrapped the idea.

14Now they are talking up their own, narrower plan.

15But the curiosity is they chose to do just that while on a visit to a country that is not interested in hosting what are being called "return hubs".

16Awkward timing

17And we were to find that out rather bluntly, when no sooner than Sir Keir Starmer had made the case for the idea, the man stood next to him, his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, said they wouldn't be doing any more deals than the one they already have with Italy, their neighbour over the Adriatic Sea.

18Downing Street insisted its own deal with Albania was "never planned as part of the discussions."

19In short, though, they had failed to ensure the most eye-catching idea they were talking about matched the pictures, the backdrop, the stage they were on.

20Cue the Conservatives, whose own record on small boat crossings was poor, but who can point to that specific success with Albania, seizing on Sir Keir's awkward juxtaposition and branding it an "embarrassment".

21It is another episode that serves as a reminder of just how hard it is finding workable, practical, deliverable solutions to a massive and complex issue, which plenty in government acknowledge they simply have to get a grip of.

22Somehow.

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from BBC