Following such a migration surge, coming after decades of variations on the same theme, how could European governments expect to be listened to even as they spoke with great force and determination on the issues of immigration and integration? Aside from the fact that for a government like Germany’s this would entail the repudiation of policies decided upon just months earlier, there is the problem that the rhetoric had long ago worn thin. It had been worn thin by politicians across Europe from both right and left – by Michael Howard and Gordon Brown, by Michel Rocard and Nicolas Sarkozy. Europeans had spent decades witnessing the gap between rhetoric and reality – the inflated claims and the simultaneous implausibility of those claims. They had even heard some ‘send them back’ rhetoric – ugly as it was – and realised it was no more true than any of the other claims.

Back in 1992 there had been an upsurge of illegal migrant boat-landings on the southern shores of Spain. It was government policy to return Moroccans who had entered Spain illegally, and deals with the comparatively friendly and helpful government of Morocco still held. But the government in Rabat refused to take back any non-Moroccans who had sailed from their shores. And although such illegals could be held in Spain for up to 40 days, they were then given their expulsion papers and expected to leave the country within a further 30 days. As in the years before and after, the vast majority stayed, expulsion papers or no expulsion papers. One reporter covering this in 1992 interviewed a 19-year-old from Algeria. Where would he be heading? ‘I have lots of family in France,’ he replied. And how would he get there? ‘Across the mountains, of course.’ He had mailed his passport on ahead to his relatives so it could not be confiscated on the way. Almost all the other people also being temporarily detained by the Spanish authorities were sub-Saharan Africans and all said that once they were released from detention they would head north.8 Then as now the Spanish and Moroccan authorities announced new deals, frameworks and solutions. Then as now the ability of many officials on all sides to turn a blind eye to the trafficking, and a decision, once the migrants were in Europe, that it was easier to let them drift on up into the continent, made all such deals and solutions little better than meaningless.