One thing for which we might be marginally grateful is those bilateral agreements between the UK and France that allow us to station our border controls on French soil. The reason for this is that, under EU law, responsibility for looking after would-be asylum seekers falls on the country where they apply to be “processed”. This should be the first EU country where they arrive, but since the front-line countries such as Italy are very reluctant to keep them, they are waved on towards the countries they do wish to reach, such as Germany and Britain.