The harms of anti-smuggling narratives and legislation on migrants: a comparative study of Italy and the UK

This article investigates how anti-smuggling political narratives and legislation in Italy and the UK are used to justify institutionalised harm on migrants, using thematic analysis of legislation, NGOs’ reports, press, and social media coverage on migration and smuggling in the last two years (2022–2024). Through a comparative study of Italy as a longstanding EU internal border, and the UK as a new EU external border, this article will show how discourses of exceptionalism, securitisation, and externalisation of borders are used to justify the infliction of harms on migrants in the context of a trend of an increasingly violent hostile environment and spectacle of borders of the European neoliberal democracies.