Britain has a long history of accepting refugees from conflicts on the European continent, from the Huguenots to the Jews of Russia and Germany. In recent years, people fleeing wars in Kosovo, Syria and Afghanistan have also been resettled here, often amid criticism that too little was being done to help.

British policy has tended to favour giving financial help to the countries closest to the war zone, to enable them to cope better with the refugees, rather than seek to encourage mass movement to Britain. This reflects the reality that most refugees want to go home as soon as they can and not move to another land far away.

The Government is being denounced for not emulating the EU’s decision to let any refugees settle within the bloc for three years without having to apply for asylum. The contrast has been condemned as “mean-spirited”, an impression that was not dispelled by the immigration minister Kevin Foster urging Ukrainians to apply to come to the UK under the seasonal worker scheme to pick fruit.

The great majority of refugees are moving into the countries that immediately border Ukraine, including Poland which Boris Johnson is due to visit today to pledge assistance. Helping Ukrainians stay close to their country in the hope of an early return is sensible, not a policy to be caricatured as ungenerous by the usual suspects.

If the war turns out to be more protracted or Ukrainian towns and cities are left uninhabitable, we can address the needs of refugees with special settlement programmes, as happened with Kosovans displaced by the conflict in the Balkans 25 years ago.