Why Giorgia Meloni is key to ‘stopping the boats’

Whatever Rishi Sunak does to ‘stop the boats’, the fight to prevent illegal immigration to Britain and Europe will not be won or lost in the English Channel. It will be decided in the sea between Italy and Africa.

At a recent EU summit in Brussels, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s new right-wing Prime Minister, warned that if the crisis-torn dictatorship of Kais Saied in Tunisia falls, then there will be ‘an invasion’ of Italy this year of ‘up to 900,000 migrants’. Tunisia has become a new major departure point for migrants coming to Europe. An Italian secret service report, meanwhile, warns that another ‘685,000 migrants’ are ready to cross to Italy from Libya.

Already in 2023, four times as many migrants have arrived in Italy from north Africa compared with the same period last year – increasingly from Tunisia.