There is an increasingly nasty atmosphere circling the debate over asylum-seekers and refugees in the UK. The Conservatives grab the headlines with policy statements which pander to the populist, often barely disguised racist tendencies of some voters, serving to push the party further to the right. Yet it is an election strategy to which the Conservatives can directly attribute their success in pockets of southern England in the local council elections earlier this month.
Voters in the Kent countryside and further along the south coast in Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth handed the Conservatives key council votes against the backdrop of emotive election material warning that a "flood" of "bogus" asylum-seekers was sweeping through their sleepy existence. Council victories here proved to the Conservatives that populist policies on asylum, crime and law and order struck a chord with voters.
New Labour has also played its part in heightening public ignorance about asylum-seekers and refugees. Apart from the now outlawed use of the term "bogus," which was applied while asylum-seekers were still awaiting decisions on their applications, only two weeks ago the Immigration Minister, Ms Barbara Roche, was accused of planning a "radical toughening" of the British government's stance on asylum-seekers.
It appeared that while the Conservatives could take the flak for proposing the detention of new asylum-seekers, behind the scenes the government was busy drawing up startlingly similar proposals. Labour wants to inhabit the moral high ground and at the same time adopt a tough line on asylum.
So while the Labour government urges moderation in language it too falls into the populist trap, drawing up lists of countries from which visitors to Britain must pay a £5,000 bond to guarantee they will return home when their holiday is over. The plan was abandoned only after an outcry among immigrant groups.
What has brought so many people and politicians of this land, a land that welcomed with open arms the Huguenots in the 17th century and the Ugandan Asians fleeing persecution by Idi Amin in 1972, into conflict with today's asylum-seekers and refugees?
Many still shudder at the memory of Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech in May 1968. Unchecked, immigration would lead to violence on the streets of British cities, Powell thundered, and he, "like the Roman, could see the Tiber foaming with much blood" as a result.
The Conservative leader at the time, Sir Edward Heath, denounced Powell as a racist and sacked him from the cabinet. Yet, little more than 30 years later, the same Conservative party stands accused of pandering to racism with its comments on asylum-seekers.
Some of the answers may be found in the recent history of asylum in the UK. After the second World War, when large numbers of refugees were moving around Europe, the UK signed up to both the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, which guarantees the right to asylum, and the 1967 Protocol enabling signatories to receive and recognise refugees fleeing persecution.
After some resistance to the migration of a few thousand Jews and Poles from central and eastern Europe and Russia, there were relatively few asylum-seekers until the residents of former British colonies in Africa sought refuge in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s.
The newcomers were welcomed with open arms, taking up jobs on the railways, the buses, in the service industry and as doctors, accountants and small businessmen. The cities of London, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, with their long history of sanctuary, absorbed the waifs and the strays; the colour of their skin and their nationality didn't matter.
But by the late 1970s and with Britain in the economic doldrums, the welcome afforded refugees began to bubble into resentment over jobs being taken by black and ethnic workers, mixed marriages and a different cultural background. The number of racist attacks increased and a general atmosphere of unease towards "foreigners" was marked by violent attacks on the ethnic minorities and the rise of the National Front.
The "me-first" attitude of the 1980s meant asylum-seekers and refugees, at that time mainly from Sri Lanka and Somalia as well as Kurds from Turkey, were almost invisible. The economy was buoyant and refugees lived and worked alongside their British neighbours.
The price of their anonymity was that they kept their heads down and didn't report racial attacks.
According to Amnesty International and the Refugee Council, the arrival of Kosovar Albanians after the conflict in Yugoslavia last year transformed the asylum issue. When politicians explained the torture and mayhem the people were fleeing, their arrival in Britain was welcomed. People in Lancashire, Yorkshire and in Scotland were proud to welcome the new arrivals.
It was not long, however, before a series of events raised the temperature of the asylum issue.
A fairground fight near Dover last summer between a group of refugees and local youths saw the town become a focus for far-right groups. There were three National Front marches in the area and the more the asylum-seekers arrived in the backs of lorries at Dover the stronger the local resentment.
Ann Widdecombe stomped around Dover warning about the dangers of the government's asylum policy. Labour talked tough on asylum-seekers and the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, cracked down on would-be immigrants, introducing legislation to make life tougher for asylum-seekers who were now asked to live off food vouchers.
Then came the Afghan hijack at Stansted Airport. The fact that many of the people on the aircraft eventually applied for asylum provoked vicious comment from the tabloids.
The Sun complained about economic immigrants, Jack Straw said he would send them all back if their cases were unfounded, and the tabloids complained about asylum-seekers being put up in £150-a-night hotels.
Added to the mix was the government's policy of "dispersing" asylum-seekers in order to ease the strain on the south-east of England where they were concentrated. The system was at first chaotic.
Towns such as Oxford and Hull and cities such as Liverpool and Birmingham received asylum-seekers often with only a few hours' notice.
In response, the tabloids wrote stories about rising council tax bills and Romany beggars on the streets of London.
And within a matter of weeks the government said aggressive beggars, many of them asylum-seekers, should be sent to detention camps, such as Oakington, while awaiting the outcome of their applications.
Politicians who have poured petrol on the flames of the asylum issue have been blamed for an increase in racial attacks in Birmingham. Earlier this month, the Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit blamed the Conservative demonising of refugees and asylum-seekers for a vicious attack on a 24-year-old man.
And in the usually sleepy town of Oxford the houses of a group of Kosovan refugees were attacked by 15 youths last year.
The words of one of the refugees brought home the reality of the British welcome for some immigrants: "I feel like I would have to go to the moon to find peace. At least when the Serbs attacked they were doing it because they wanted to take your homes. But here we were just attacked for no reason."