Migrant benefits

Calm is slowly returning to the debate about Britain and Europe. The shrillness of the referendum campaign, and the hysteria from people who ought to have known better, is giving way to an acceptance that the end is not nigh and that things could be as good, if not better, than before. The idea that the British public had somehow voted for a recession is being steadily abandoned. The next stage is to accept that Brexit was not a populist yawp about protecting our borders. It was not a demand to stop immigration, but to manage it better.

So when Theresa May rejected an Australian-style points-based immigration system this week, it did not mean that she had betrayed Brexit or shown her desire to water down the whole process. That was the suggestion of Nigel Farage, but the Australian system was at best an example of what countries do when they have the power to control their borders.