It is also worth considering what – on the current performance of Europe’s politicians and the attitudes of its populations – are more likely scenarios than the one set out in the last chapter. For instance, it would seem far more likely that rather than massive U-turns occurring, politics across Europe will instead continue in the coming decades much as it was up until now. There has been little meaningful acknowledgement among the political class that what it has done during the decades of mass immigration is in any way regrettable. There is no evidence that they would wish to reverse that policy. And there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that they could not do so even if they wished to. The events of 2015 onwards have merely sped up a process that had long been underway.

Every new migrant to Western Europe becomes harder to eject the longer they are settled, and most of us do not want to eject most or many of them in any case. But with every new arrival the balance of Europe’s future attitudes shifts. Those arriving have children who will remember their roots and are more likely than the rest of the population to oppose further restrictions on immigration. An ever larger number of people who are themselves of immigrant background will be ever less likely to support any political party proposing limits on immigration. They will feel suspicious of those parties, even where their agendas are comparatively modest. Aside from worrying for themselves, it is hard for somebody who has come to Europe from elsewhere to reason why other people like them should not come in their wake. The line between legal and illegal immigration will continue to blur ever further. So with each passing day it will become harder to find a large enough portion of the population opposed to mass immigration in order to push for a policy that would reverse or at least prevent the continuation of it. And so in time, during the present century, in the major cities first and then across whole countries, our societies will finally become those ‘nations of immigrants’ that we pretended for a period we always were.