One of the very first actions taken by the incoming Labour government was the scrapping of the previous administration’s Rwanda policy. The Conservatives had gone to the country before it was properly implemented, so we shall never know whether the threat of being sent to Africa after arriving in a dinghy on the beaches of Kent would have deterred any migrants from setting off from France in the first place.
Maybe the fact that Rishi Sunak called an early election, rather than waiting to find out, is sufficient indication that it wasn’t going to work. In the view of Sir John Major, the former prime minister, it was a misbegotten policy, both un-Conservative and un-British, that deserved to fail.
He told the BBC’s Amol Rajan: “We used to transport people, nearly 300 years ago, from our country. Felons, who at least have had a trial and been found guilty of something, albeit that the trial might have been cursory. I don’t think transportation, for that is what it is, is a policy suitable for the 21st century.”
Major even seemed to question the preoccupation with migration in the first place, saying he disliked “intensely the way society has come to regard immigration as an ill in the way it has. I don’t agree with that; I’ve never agreed with it”. He added that people who come to the UK on small boats do so “because they’re not quite sure where to go.”
Amol Rajan: Are you glad to see the back of the Rwanda scheme?
John Major(former PM): "Absolutely... I thought it was un-Conservative, un-British, if one dare say in a secular society, un-Christian, & unconscionable & I thought that this is really not the way to treat people." pic.twitter.com/H1J1hynHCI
— Haggis_UK(@Haggis_UK) September 18, 2024
These attitudes are scarcely ever voiced by Conservatives nowadays. Robert Jenrick, one of the candidates to replace Sunak as leader of his depleted party, has chosen immigration as his specialist subject. As Minister of State for Immigration back in 2023, he said that asylum seekers should be housed “in the most basic accommodation possible, including disused army bases and possibly ships, to save money and to dissuade people from coming to the UK.” In the House of Commons, he elaborated on this by saying, “We must not elevate the wellbeing of illegal migrants above those of the British people.”
But Jenrick would finally be inducted into the Hall of Infamy over comments he made about reception centres designed for unaccompanied children. Apparently, these centres contained murals depicting Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse or Baloo from The Jungle Book. Jenrick ordered that the cartoon characters be painted over in order to provide a less welcoming atmosphere for the children.
Some of this meanness might arguably have percolated down to the kind of people who thought the atmosphere should be less welcoming in general. These were the people who, after the Tories had been defeated in the General Election, thought it was a clever idea to surround a hotel known to accommodate migrants and attempt to set fire to the people inside. If there was no Rwanda policy to deter them, maybe the threat of conflagration would do the trick.
In view of the speed with which Sir Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, junked the Rwanda policy, it is at least curious that – just three months later – he has been to Italy and taken such a well-publicised ‘interest’ in what Giorgia Meloni has been doing to minimise migrant numbers.
Because Meloni is definitely not left-wing, nor are her views on immigrants so different from those of Robert Jenrick. She has made a tougher stand on illegal immigration a staple of her campaign speeches. Between 2016 and 2018, she often spoke of "ethnic substitution", the conspiracy theory also known as the "great replacement", in which obscure forces were imposing immigration on Italy to replace its native population with a low-wage foreign labour force.
In April of 2023, Jenrick said that refugees crossing the English Channel "cannibalise" communities by importing "different lifestyles and values" – which he claimed undermined "cultural cohesiveness" – and that the "nation has a right to preserve itself."
If there was any doubt about the identity of the 'cannibals' in question, one only has to consult the views of Douglas Murray, say, or the multitude of similar individuals who, like Richard Dawkins, have discovered how 'culturally' Christian they are when faced with less desirable monotheists.
Maybe John Major was naïve to add to his charge that opposing immigration was "un-Conservative, un-British", the assertion that – "if one dare say so in a secular society" – it was un-Christian. Something that Meloni freely articulated in the past, though she now tends to temper her remarks, is that Italy does not want immigrants from Africa—especially those who are Muslim. "Every nation," Meloni has said, "has the right to choose an immigration that is more compatible with its own culture. In Venezuela, there are millions of people starving – they are Christian – often of Italian origin. So, if we need immigrants, let's take them from Venezuela."
It is no secret that Meloni has a very right-wing past. Back in her fiery youth, she was even prepared to give Mussolini the benefit of the doubt. In 1996, aged just 19, she gave an interview on French TV in which she stated, "Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for the good of the country, unlike the politicians of the last 50 years."
Giorgia Meloni is on course to be Italy's next Prime Minister.
Here she is as a teenager, praising Benito Mussolini as the best Italian politician "in the last 50 years". pic.twitter.com/OL4u6gIOE8
— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) September 26, 2022
Meloni's party is called Brothers of Italy, a name inspired by the words of Italy's national anthem:
'Brothers of Italy,
Italy has awoken,
With Scipio's helmet
Upon her head.
Where is Victory?
Let her bow down,
For God has made her
A slave of Rome.'
It's stirring stuff. The best bits are at the start and at the very end, but the rest is a little histrionic for my taste. Still, I recommend any reader with a passing interest in national anthems to give it a whirl. I especially like how it's concluding word, 'Si', is sung with great gusto. Surely, it is no coincidence that James Joyce, who once lived in Trieste, chose the word 'Yes' for the ending of Ulysses. That said, the two yeses could hardly be more different.
One of the Brothers of Italy's campaign slogans declared: "We defend God, Fatherland and Family." This same slogan was part of Mussolini's propaganda and greeted with dismay by Italy's leftwing press. But Meloni is careful to point out that the slogan was coined by Giuseppe Mazzini, one of Italy's founding fathers in the time of 19th-century unification. The fact that it can be read two ways – either as an expression of democratic nationalism or as an echo of fascism – is typical of a certain ambiguity that Meloni likes to maintain, which her critics call her "doppiezza" or doubleness.
'At the moment, Meloni is having it both ways: a moderate in economic and foreign policy and a right-winger on issues such as immigration and family policy, working hard to shut down illegal immigration and cracking down on gay couples trying to adopt children. She sees herself as defending Italy against the corrosive and homogenising effects of global capitalism, a hyperactive EU bureaucracy, secular values and chaotic immigration.'
Domestically, Meloni trades on a reputation for straight-talking. She is known to revert to Roman dialect to make a point, and she seldom dissembles her feelings, whether they are joyous – as in her smiles for the Labour delegation – or miffed, like the time she scowled at Emmanuel Macron at an EU summit. Telling it 'like it is' doesn't sit easily with doppiezza, but there is one quality that raises a politician above the level of mere self-contradiction, and that is charisma. She has this quality in abundance, and it is so rare among European politicians that she benefits from the contrast:
"I am proud that most people continue to call me Giorgia," she once declared. "That's very important and precious to me. For years, people made fun of me because of my popular roots: they called me a fishmonger, a fruit seller, and a street kid because they're so educated. What they never understood is that I am proud of being a woman of the people."
