Just as King Canute failed to hold back the seas, so Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has floundered in her efforts to stop the flow of migrants to Italy since she took office last October.
Despite pledges before last year’s national election that she would cut immigration, the number of people crossing the Mediterranean in a flotilla of often decrepit old boats has doubled over the past nine months.
In addition, bowing to pressure from the business lobby, which is traditionally close to Meloni’s right-wing bloc, the government last week increased the number of migrants who can legally come to Italy for work as the population rapidly ages.
“The government is clearly not delivering what it promised, but the ruling parties are still seen by their electorate as much more reassuring than the left on immigration, so they are not feeling pressure in the opinion polls,” said Mattia Diletti, a politics professor at Rome’s Sapienza University.