Italy’s hardline interior minister wants to ban all migrant rescue vessels from entering Italian territorial waters, in a sharp escalation of his campaign against asylum seekers.

Matteo Salvini has already closed Italy’s ports to NGO ships that rescue migrants at sea but now wants to go a step further, barring them from even approaching Italian shores.

Mr Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and head of the hard-Right League, has seen his electoral support soar since cracking down on migrants and the humanitarian groups that rescue them at sea after they depart the coast of Libya in dinghies and boats.

“The objective is to identify a standard procedure for when there are new arrivals of NGO ships,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

Rescue ships that “encourage clandestine immigration” would be regarded as “representing a risk to national security”, the ministry said.