British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new ‘far right’ mission to lock up asylum seekers in distant countries yesterday suffered an embarrassing setback on live television.
The former human rights supremo – who cancelled the Tory Rwanda scheme on day one in office – was in Tirana, less than one year later, to discuss setting up a similar scheme in Albania.
Or so the media were led to believe in press briefings beforehand: that it would be a main item on the agenda at his bilateral meeting with Albania’s socialist Prime Minister Edi Rami.
Italy’s conservative Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has already launched such a scheme in Albania. She is still called ‘far right’ by most media
But at their joint press conference, Rami soon put the kybosh on the idea by announcing most undiplomatically that such a deal would never happen.
In evident discomfort, Sir Keir did not respond to what Rami had said but spoke instead of talks he is having ‘with a number of countries’ about similar schemes.
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