Ten years ago on 31 August 2015, Angela Merkel told the German press what she was going to do about the swell of Syrian refugees heading to Europe. With the three fateful words ‘ Wir schaffen das ’ – ‘We can handle it’ – she ushered in a new era of uncontrolled mass migration, not just for Germany but for the rest of the European Union too.

The then chancellor, so often described by her supporters in the press as the ‘queen of Europe’, was adamant that Germany was a ‘strong country’, which had the resources to support the sudden influx of migrants. ‘We will provide protection to all those fleeing to us from wars,’ she insisted. Whether or not other European leaders shared her confidence was immaterial. Thanks to the EU’s porous internal borders and the freedom of movement, in practice h

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