PM's Albania trip shows tricky path on migration

A 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.

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

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

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

Sir 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.

But 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.

Downing 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".

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

Rwanda comparison

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

The 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.

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

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

Now they are talking up their own, narrower plan.

But 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".

Awkward timing

And 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.

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

In 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.

Cue 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".

It 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.

Somehow.

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