Scheme with Italy, The Telegraph: British Prime Minister open to sending asylum seekers to Albania

The Telegraph/ British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is open to sending migrants to Albania instead of Rwanda, saying he was "interested" in a processing scheme developed by the Italian government.

Giorgia Meloni reached an agreement last year to open two migrant processing centers in the Balkan country, where the claims of 36,000 migrants will be processed each year. The first of the migrant centers will open this fall after several months of delay.

Keir said he was "interested" to see how the scheme would work and said he wanted to discuss Ms Meloni's "strong views" on migration and how they could help the UK deal with its shipping crisis small ones.

Over the past year, the number of illegal immigrants arriving in Italy has fallen from 118,000 to 44,500, a drop of 62 percent.

The prime minister's positive comments about Albania come despite his party's decision to withdraw the Conservatives' scheme in Rwanda.

Under Italy's scheme, those whose asylum applications are rejected will be returned to their home country, while those who are accepted will be accepted in Italy. Under Rwanda's scheme, they would have been deported there.

The Prime Minister made his comments during a trip to Washington to meet US President Joe Biden.

On Sunday night, he will fly to Rome to meet Ms Meloni for the second time since his election victory.

Asked about the Albanian scheme, Sir Keir said: " Let's see. It's early days, I'm interested in how this works, I think everyone else is."

He said he had already had a preliminary discussion with Ms Meloni about "how we can work together on irregular migration".

"She certainly has some strong ideas and I look forward to discussing them with her," he said.

"She and I have already discussed how we can improve joint operations, so that is something we will discuss."

The trip to Rome is the latest in a series of visits to European capitals as he seeks to forge closer cooperation on tackling illegal migration and his efforts for a broader reset of relations with the EU.

More than 23,000 migrants have arrived in the UK in small boats so far this year, about the same as this time last year.