What Europe desperately needs but, crippled by a stupefying blend of political correctness and fear, seems incapable of having is a realistic debate about the long-term implications of all this. We see a kind of docile fatalism epitomised by a notorious radio interview in which the then Swedish minister for integration, Jens Orback, talked about accommodating Muslims now so that in the event they became a majority “we go a little bit safer”. Any suggestion there might be any problem intrinsic to Islam has to be made with extreme care to avoid being accused of “Islamophobia”, an ill-defined term that is routinely conflated with racism … A realistic debate needs to acknowledge that Islam is not a race but a belief system, with tenets that many of its followers take extremely seriously … If Europe is to avert a civilisational catastrophe it must close its borders to irregular flows urgently – as humanely as possible, but decisively.

As the trains pull in to German railway stations to disgorge men who meet no known definition of “refugees” they are greeted on the platform by volunteers offering food and second-hand clothes. The cameras do their best to alight on a telegenic moppet or a covered woman, but, even when they do, you notice that they’re surrounded by a sea of confident vigorous males – who, according to the UN, make up 75 per cent of the “refugees”. That would be an unusual demographic distortion in most emergency situations. If 75 per cent of the Titanic’s survivors had been men who’d left their women and children back on the ship, there might have been a few disapproving comments. But not here. And why complain that the Syrian refugees aren’t really “refugees”? After all, they’re not Syrian either.

Former Labor Minister Peter Baldwin calls on Europe to close its borders:Hungary’s efforts to barricade itself were recently criticised as “un-European” , which rather misses the point. In fact, Hungary is trying very hard toEuropean. Meanwhile, a debate has broken out over whether to describe Europe’s future rulers as migrants, refugees or asylum seekers . I prefer the attractive Australianism “reffo”, which deserves an international audience. Of course, some view the term as offensive or pejorative . As a, I disagree. UPDATE. Mark Steyn