Theresa May wants to be remembered as the politician who safely delivered the United Kingdom out of the clutches of the European Union, without wrecking the economy in the process. Yet there is more at stake than money: there is also a moral economy, a calculation that asks not whether Britain is richer but whether it is better. One decision by her Government, if it is allowed to stand, indicates that the direction of travel is downwards.

With Mrs May’s full backing, the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has announced the end to a scheme by which a limited number of unaccompanied refugee children could be brought from elsewhere in Europe into Britain, where they could be settled and cared for. These defenceless and damaged children are innocent victims of conflicts in the Middle East and Libya for which British foreign policy is partly responsible.