Mark Stone, Europe correspondent

Remember Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s self-declared “major incident” over Christmas?

The one where the Navy was called in to tackle unprecedented numbers of migrants trying to get into Britain?

The government activated its panic stations. Mr Javid dashed back from his holiday.

The newspapers pondered what to do about it all. Some of them intentionally implied it represented an invasion. The TV news channels (yes, us) went into Christmas period overdrive.

It was unprecedented, yes, in the sense that we haven’t seen crossings of this sort or in these numbers before. But was it really a major incident?

According to Sky News analysis around 245 migrants made it to UK shores in November and December. I’d argue that, in context, those numbers represent a perfectly manageable movement of people who are, let’s remember, desperate enough to attempt such a crazy journey.

Compare the number to the well over 100 who are crossing into Greece and Spain every day at the moment (and for the record, most of them don’t want to come to the UK despite what the perception may be).

Instead of asserting, as The Sun did, that they can’t possibly be genuine asylum seekers, or as others inferred, that they are criminals, surely the calmer, more rational, human response should be for us all (politicians, media and general public) to put a little more effort into trying to understand who these people are and why they are making the journeys?

Some have: I’d recommend this ‘long read’ from my own colleagues as a very thorough analysis.

I have had what I would consider to be the privilege of covering the migration story across Europe for a few years now. I’ve got to know many of the migrants (people) I have met quite well.

My WhatsApp and Facebook accounts are full of the names and messages of many young people who have told me their stories.

I consider one young Syrian and his family now living in Germany to be my friends. In my next dispatch for the Sky Views series I’ll write about three particular characters, including my Syrian pal.

All of them have extraordinary stories. Almost all of them are unquestionably in need of safe haven – in other words they are eligible for asylum.

Rather than demonising them as the governments of Europe and the some of the media often manage to do, understandably creating a sense of unease among the public, we should try to understand them better.

More than that though. If the continued migration “crisis” is to be managed, and it must be, then governments need to demonstrate (and must not be afraid to demonstrate) two things.

First, that irregular migrants (those who have arrived illegally) are nothing to fear.

And second, importantly, governments must be able to demonstrate that they are successfully returning migrants who fail with their asylum applications.

Analysis recently released by a former director-general of UK Immigration Enforcement suggests that tens of thousands of people remain in the UK despite having their asylum claims rejected.

David Wood’s research shows that, of the 80,813 applications which were refused or withdrawn between 2010 and 2016, only 29,659 individuals were removed, leaving 51,154 failed asylum seekers in the country from that seven-year period.

This is a shocking failure and naturally undermines the sense of compassion that I’d argue we ought to show to those genuine refugees who look to Europe and Britain for a better life.

Of course it also encourages others to to come too – if the message filters back that the UK asylum system is a walkover then others, whose lives may be desperate but whose background doesn’t qualify them for asylum, may try their luck.

Countries across Europe, including the UK, are managing to return some people whose asylum applications are rejected to the countries they came from, but the research would suggest the system is still failing.

The inability to secure return policies with some source countries is an issue – a number of African countries simply refuse to take their citizens back.

But there’s another problem too. In the UK, the process by which applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis is not being applied.

In 70% of decisions where an asylum claim is turned down and ends up going to court, the judge will find that the decision to reject the application was made incorrectly.

Asylum laws across Europe are not fit for purpose. Frontier countries such as Spain, Malta, Italy and Greece are forced to bear an unsustainable strain.

Europe ought to be able to demonstrate that, in context with the population of the continent, the numbers arriving are small and manageable.

Burden sharing is vital to ease the strain on frontier nations. And countries including the UK must visually demonstrate that those who come are being helped either to integrate or to go home, depending on the conclusions of individual and rigorous asylum tests.

If we did all that then we’d make some progress with a hugely complex challenge.

Instead, the new arrivals wander through Europe freely, hopelessly and only with volunteers helping them out.

A proportion, a very small proportion, end up at the end of the line – Calais – with one final dream over the horizon.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Adam Boulton – We may yet be glad John Bercow is still Speaker

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