Now slam the door on an ever-closer union

AS borders slam shut all over Europe, the EU’s dream of ever-closer union appears to be unravelling before our eyes.

First came the crisis over the single currency – still dragging on after eight years. Now the immense tide of humanity sweeping in from the Africa and the Middle East has placed even greater strain on floundering EU institutions.

No wonder the clamour is growing in Britain to withdraw from this shambolic club, with yesterday’s ICM poll showing the ‘in’ and ‘out’ camps neck-and-neck.

Indeed, Angela Merkel, the usually sure-footed high priestess of European integration, has scored a catastrophic own goal by her twists and turns over asylum.

First, she encouraged tens of thousands more migrants to risk their lives at sea by declaring that Germany would offer homes to 800,000 this year (was she motivated solely by concern for refugees – or partly by her country’s desperate need to rejuvenate its ageing labour force?). Now she dashes migrants’ hopes by reintroducing border controls. But not before plunging countries such as Austria, Hungary, Italy and Greece into deeper crisis by raising those hopes in the first place.

For his part, David Cameron has played a wiser hand, offering only to help refugees in camps bordering Syria – thereby discouraging others from throwing themselves on the mercy of people-traffickers.

Renewed border controls may also slow the flow of people across Europe, but the countries in the Schengen Area will have to lift restrictions within two months. It is impossible to believe this crisis will be over by then.