There is a panic in the UK press at the moment. It's all because of the refugees trying to cross from Calais into Dover. There has been talk about how many of them there are with words like swarm and hordes. There has been little consideration of them as people or empathy for their plight.Of course these stories pick up a theme in the British press - identify the 'others' that we should fear. The outsiders that come to take our jobs or to claim benefit or break into our houses. This is a common trick used by the Far Right. Fascists and right-wing parties have always made us wary one group or another - gypsies or Jews or muslims - who act as a simple scapegoat for problems caused by societal inequalities. Ones that usually benefit the powerful people pushing these stories.
David Cameron's Conservatives have done this a lot. Blaming the UK's debt on the unemployed and expensive public services rather than reminding people that it was the private-sector banks that failed and needed to be bailed out. That the repayments are to fix a mess made by wealthy individuals working for large corporations. They use distractions to take our focus away from the real problems so we can identify easy enemies.
And the immigrants are proving to be very easy enemies. As victims of geopolitical instabilities, partially triggered by UK intervention in Libya, they have little power. But how long can the Tories keep pushing this line? Children are dying and some of the more liberal elements of the press are picking up on this. Even some members of Conservative party are rebelling. Unless they want to move into BNP territory it is not a policy Cameron can hold for long.
But maybe that's the way going. Maybe austerity and anti-EU feeling will push the Tories even further to the right. Then again, maybe that's what they've always been like deep down. Without the Lib Dems to hold them back are we at last seeing the Conservatives as they really are?