Hello and welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Laura Prendergast.

We're adding a new addition to this podcast a weekly in-depth discussion of one of the pieces in the magazine.

And I'm delighted to be launching it today with a discussion about Libya, with the politician-writer Quwasi Kwarteng and the journalist Kim

Sengupta. In this week's issue of the magazine, the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

writes about his recent trip to Libya. He says that we have to deal with the economic

roots of the migration crisis, and that means dealing with a crisis in Libya. So, Kwasi,

why is Libya so important right now?

I think Libya's importance in terms of European politics, if not global politics,

is that it's very much the gateway for a lot of immigration, or rather migration,

from sub-Saharan Africa into Europe. Something like 200 to 500 people a day are paying vast amounts of money.

Boris says 1500 euros, I've heard, $1,000. But in that order, each individual is paying this

in order to be shipped, essentially from Libya, from Africa, the continent of Africa, into Europe.

And I think as we, the summer months start as we get into the summer, this crisis, this flow of people will increase.

And it represents probably the biggest migration, in terms of migration, into Europe for a very long time. And clearly it's straining

European politics, not only politics, but the infrastructure of countries like Italy to deal

with this influx. And the last thing I'll say about this is that one of the big problems is that

it's a humanitarian tragedy. There's also a sense in which, you know,

hundreds of people are losing their lives needlessly in the Mediterranean as a consequence

of this huge traffic of people. Kim, why has it the Libya has become such a hub for trafficking?

Well, it always was. And I remember in the days following the fall of Tripoli,

when we were there and Gaddafi had fled.

And of course, he was then caught and murdered later on.

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