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Some observers, like Mr Tilford, say there is blame to be spread across the political spectrum. While the tenor of the Leave campaign "is pretty xenophobic," he said, both of the major mainstream parties, Labour and the Conservatives, now regularly discuss the potential menace of foreigners. "That has made it socially acceptable to voice anti-immigrant or xenophobic sentiment in a way that it wasn't 10 years ago," he said.

Ian Bond, of the Centre for European Reform, argues that if Britain stays in the EU it must find new ways of projecting its power. Britain could help the EU to construct a data-sharing and privacy regime able to withstand challenges in the European Court of Justice. There is a case for Britain backing more EU collaboration in operational intelligence-sharing (against people smugglers in Libya for example) and boosting defence research. Britain, said Mr Bond, “should accept that the market alone will not protect central European countries reliant on Russian gas”. The government should work together with the Commission to ensure that Moscow cannot use the supply of gas to weaker EU members as a weapon.

"Greece has gained some price competitiveness due to the sliding wages, which has helped the tourism sector, but this has not translated into a boost for exports, which face a set of more complex challenges", argues Christian Odendahl, the chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London.

These concessions may seem esoteric, but Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank in London, thinks they are important - and not just for Britain. What the EU has conceded is, in effect, that its members are now moving not just at different speeds but towards different ultimate destinations. This is why true believers in a federal Europe hated the deal given to Mr Cameron. But some other non-euro countries, like Sweden, Poland and Hungary, liked it. Indeed, if Brexit prevails on June 23rd, they may try to secure the same deal for themselves.