Rishi Sunak, and his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni, have teamed up to call for more action to be taken to tackle illegal migration.

Both leaders have made reducing the number of people arriving in their nations outside traditional pathways a key part of their leadership.

The pair co-hosted a summit on the fringes of the European Political Community Summit in Granada yesterday.

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French President Emmanuel Macron, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were all part of the meeting.

The group “expressed a shared commitment to support one another to tackle the challenges of irregular migration”, and committed to taking eight steps to reduce illegal migration.

These including taking joint action to tackle organised crime, working closer together on sharing information, developing countries where people are leaving, strengthening visa regimes and working to improve returns within the group.

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The group also agreed to “update the legal framework to strengthen our fight against people smugglers, ensuring harmonisation of criminal offences and working together at the UN level”.

Italy recently saw thousands of people arrive at the island of Lampedusa in a day. More than 130,000 people have arrived in Italy so far this year – compared to close to 71,000 last year.

Both the UK and Italy have had parts of their migration programme challenged in the courts.

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For the UK, this is the Rwanda deportation scheme, which is due to be ruled on next week, while in Italy judges have ruled against steps taken by Ms Meloni to detain migrants.

As well as their meeting in Europe, Ms Meloni and Mr Sunak co-authored an article in The Times.

In it, the pair said they “are working together to stop the boats and we are calling on others to act with the same sense of urgency”.

The pair added: “Our determination to tackle this issue is already delivering results.

“It has sparked a change in the debate and created momentum across Europe.

“Countries across our continent are recognising that the current approach is not working.

“They’re realising that we need closer co-operation and tougher measures to crack down on the people smugglers.”

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This comes shortly after UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman called for an international asylum system reform, saying that “discrimination” was being used as a reason for people to claim refuge – when the bar should be “persecution”.

She said that being a woman or gay and fearing discrimination should not be enough for someone to qualify as a refugee in the UK.

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