When Keir Starmer scrapped the Tories’ disastrous Rwanda deportations deal within days of assuming office, there was a sigh of relief. Many welcomed what seemed to be a decisive shift away from the previous government’s strategy of using relentless cruelty toward people migrating to distract from their failures to govern.

Some even hoped that Labour’s campaign — which featured a defecting hard-right Conservative MP arguing that the Tories were insufficiently tough on borders — was merely a clever electoral maneuver. But as the Labour government ramps up mass deportations and raids on workplaces, reopens abuse-ridden detention centers, and mulls returning the UK back to the fold of a deadly European migration control regime, it looks like Starmer’s campaign should be taken at its word.

This week, the prime minister is in Italy breaking bread with Giorgia Meloni, a leader who came to power at the head of a party built in the aftermath of World War II to maintain the legacy of Benito Mussolini and Italian fascism. Starmer says he wants to learn from and cooperate with Meloni’s approach to migration.