Petillo also referred to Britain backing away from its controversial and expensive plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as ultimately unworkable. Italy’s center-left opposition quickly called for an end to the Albania plan, saying the court ruling proves its illegality.

Women, children, families and vulnerable men will go to Italy for processing in the normal way. So will anyone who claims to be from a country not on Italy’s “safe” list of 22 (which includes Bangladesh,