Far-Right Italian leadership favourite proposes ‘act of war’ blockade to stop migrants

The frontrunner to be Italy’s next prime minister has been accused of promoting an “act of war” after calling for a naval blockade to stop illegal migrant arrivals from Libya.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Right-wing Brothers of Italy, the party considered to be the heir to the Italian fascist movement, advocates a hardline against undocumented migrants.

Ms Meloni currently leads national opinion polls ahead of Italy’s election on September 25.

During an interview with Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset TV network, Ms Meloni called for a naval blockade to stop undocumented migrants from crossing the Mediterranean and landing in Italy. “The problem of arrivals must be dealt with upstream, with what we have always called a naval blockade,” she said.

Ms Meloni said European institutions needed to “negotiate together with Libya directly on the possibility of stopping boat departures, opening of hotspots in Africa, Libya or elsewhere, and the evaluation of who has the right to be a refugee”.

“This the only serious way to confront the issue,” she said in the interview.

Meloni proposal ‘is pure populism’

Ms Meloni’s Right-wing allies, Matteo Salvini’s League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, appeared to distance themselves from her blockade proposal, and her comments immediately drew the ire of centre-Left opponents, including Laura Boldrini, the former speaker of the lower house of parliament.

“Meloni, do you know that under international law it is considered an act of war?” Ms Boldrini wrote on Twitter at the weekend. “Do you know that more ships would be required than the navy has? Do you know the number of dead would outnumber those rejected?”

Article 42 of the UN Charter states a naval blockade should only be considered by the UN Security Council in response to a threat to peace or act of aggression.

Osvaldo Napoli, from the centre-Left Azione party, told the daily La Stampa the blockade proposal was “pure populism” and likened it to “the wall that villain Donald Trump thought would stop the arrival of immigrants from Mexico”.

But Ms Meloni defended her stance on Facebook, saying the blockade proposal was nothing more than what was proposed by the European Union in 2017.

“Those who blabber on today that the naval blockade cannot be done because it is ‘an act of war’ demonstrate their total ignorance on the issue of immigration,” she said.

Mr Salvini, a key Meloni ally and former interior minister who heads the anti-immigrant League Party, on Thursday visited Lampedusa’s migrant reception centre where more than 1,000 mostly young men were packed into a facility meant for 350.

“All suggestions are valuable, but we blocked immigration with security decrees,” one party source close to Mr Salvini told The Telegraph, in a reference to his previous term as interior minister.

Open Arms, the NGO that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean, accused Brothers of Italy of spreading propaganda and said a naval blockade would be impossible to introduce.