Dying at sea for European xenophobia and the parties that promote it

Rightwing Italien Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s sometimes pragmatic-sounding public rhetoric on immigration and refugees doesn’t match her government’s actual policies:

At the same time [as European news was reporting on the plight of a stranded whale on the shore of the Baltic Sea], about 80 people were drifting between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean. It looks like the reconnaissance aircraft IAM4101 the Italian Air Force flew over the sea area very close to the rubber boat on Monday. The Frontex aircraft "Eagle 2" provided information twice on the same day about a rubber boat in distress. But it was not until more than 24 hours later, on Tuesday, that the Italian coast guard came to the aid of the people. By then, 19 of the occupants were dead, apparently frozen, five were in critical condition. (1)

This is deliberate neglect on the part of Meloni’s government to communicate to her core far-right voting base that she shares their murderous hatred for immigrants and refugees. But Italy isn’t alone in such criminal neglect: “A day later, on Wednesday, 20 migrants died in a boat accident off the coast of Bodrum in Turkey. On Sunday, at least 40 people drowned eleven miles off the coast of Sfax in Tunisia.”

Experts dealing with immigration and rescue operations have been saying for years to anyone who will listen to them that there are well-established ways to humanely and practically manage refugee flows, save people in immediate danger of drowning at sea, and reducing illegal people-smuggling operations.

But the politics of xenophobia that has been the main cause pushed by the anti-democracy rightwing parties in Europe and the US is not about practical policy ideas. It’s about fear- and hate-mongering driven by lies and cruelty. Trump’s ICE Gestapo goons have been one of the most dramatic cases of this in the last two years, but it’s only a variant of the common xenophobic political playbook.

The rightwingers are not going to give up on this until it starts completely wrecking their political appeal. When (non-rightwing-radical) conservative parties like the Christian Democrats in Germany and center-left policies like the Democrats in the US try to pander to the nationalist xenophobia by some version of “we hate the foreigners as much as the rightwingers if not more” – and that was the point Kamala Harris stressed in her 2024 Presidential campaign – that approach has been remarkably successful in strengthening the rightwing parties.

Xenophobic politics is based on hatred, fear, and lies. Democratic parties should offer practical and non-xenophobic policies as an alternative. But xenophobia politics is not primarily about policy issues, often not really at all about policy issues. Unless the pro-democracy parties are willing to fight directly against the lies and hysteria from the xenophobes and call them out as such, the rational talk about sensible policies will never be heard in the way they need to be.

We’ve seen that in a dramatic way the last 14 months or so in the US in the grassroots opposition to the Trump ICE Gestapo, which has primarily been a grassroots movement, not one led by the Democratic Party. There are certainly real exceptions like Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Mike Walz and other Democratic leaders – even Gavin Newsom. But having Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer groaning that they will push back against Trump’s racist and xenophobic actions some way, somehow, someday, will never be enough.

Meloni speaking to CPAC 2022

Notes:

(1) Jakob. Christian (2026): Als Wal wäre ihnen das nicht passiert. taz 04/04/2026. <https://taz.de/Todeszone-Mittelmeer/!6164508/> (Accessed: 2026-04-04). My translation from German.

(2) 19 dead after hours without help: New evidence incriminates European authorities. Sea-Watch 04/02/2026. <https://sea-watch.org/en/19-dead-after-hours-without-help-new-evidence-incriminates-european-authorities/> (Accessed: 2026-09-04).