'A love-burst' Sunak and Meloni's rapport boosts hard-right agenda

One cut her political teeth on the streets of Rome as a teenage neo-fascist activist, rising to become Italy's first female prime minister.

- Ben Quinn , Angela Giuffrida

The other is a former investment banker who became Britain's wealthiest prime minister, and its first of colour.

Yet whatever their very different backgrounds, the ties between Giorgia Meloni and Rishi Sunak grow even closer today when he attends a rightwing political festival in Rome organised by her hardline Brothers of Italy party.

The visit is also a return favour on Sunak's part - Meloni was the only other G7 leader to attend a UK summit last month on artificial intelligence. The biggest draw once again will be Elon Musk, who was publicly interviewed by Sunak at his UK event, while other guests at the Atreju summit in Rome include figures such as the leader of Spain's far-right Vox party.

Sunak and Meloni have bonded over a shared hardline approach to immigration through policies that have sometimes pushed the limits of what is legal.

The issue will be central to a bilateral meeting between the two before the festival and then a "trilateral" involving them and the prime minister of Albania. A deal Italy struck with the Albanian government is regarded as having been partly inspired by the British Conservative government's longrunning attempts to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

But the mutually beneficial relationship between Sunak and Meloni also reflects an increasing blurring of lines between politicians from Europe's far right and more traditional conservative backgrounds.

Post-Brexit, Sunak has found an ally inside the EU with a shared interest in taking the hardline stance on immigration demanded by his party's powerbase. And Meloni, an anglophile fond of quoting the English conservative philosopher Roger Scruton, finds an alliance that helps make her extremist roots seem more distant.