When the going gets tough, it becomes increasing difficult to conceal our xenophobia

Such summary justice, which may in fact be anecdotal, probably had little effect, but made us feel better. It provided a sense of cleansing of undesirable elements who’d had the impertinence to impose themselves on our own 45 square miles. And it would seem we’re not alone.

France has now incurred the wrath of the European commission over its programme of removing unwelcome Roma migrants from its soil. The row has come to a head after it emerged that French police had cleared in the region of three hundred illegal Roma and traveller camps within three months.

To date, the French have expelled over 1,000 of the estimated 15,000 Roma on its territory, while Italy and Germany are also considering their options.

They each cite crime levels, general unruliness, growing hostility from their native populations and the decline of threats in the country of origin. But they’re not the only ones who’ve been removing personae non grata from their shores.

British taxpayers have already spent £40m on repatriating illegal immigrants. Last year alone, well over two-thousand were flown home at a cost of £10.5m.

On current estimates, that works out at about £5,000 a seat, though unlike the Roma, they are not moved within the EU.

I suppose there’s always something mischievously satisfying about being able to view another’s discomfort from the sidelines – the more so if it involves the spectacle of pompous officialdom getting hot under its cumbersome collar.

The EU rarely disappoints, but the fact that France is currently so prominently in the frame stems from a clumsy attempt by its President to counter domestic unpopularity by highlighting the expulsions policy in order to appeal to the political rightwing.

Not surprisingly, out of the box jumped every pent-up hypocritical prejudice across Europe, with allusions to World War II and Nazism, while the intemperate response of EU justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, who declared the French policy ‘a disgrace’ and sparked an unseemly exchange between heads of state, was as near as one could get to the multinational theatre of the absurd

Nevertheless, President Sarkozy has provided his domestic political opponents – led by those who would manipulate racism to pursue private agendas – to leap on the issue.

Yet however mired he may be by economic and social opposition, 60 per cent of the French population are with him on the measures to clean up the feral camps in the countryside.

Of course there’s a NIMBY element in all this and it’s universal. Whatever liberal ideals a society signs up to, when pressures build up, it becomes difficult to conceal an underlying xenophobia.

From ‘playful’ banter at sporting events to simmering themes at general election time, when the going gets tough, foreigners are not the favourite flavours in the chocolate box.

It doesn’t matter whether, as in the French case, the deportees receive resettlement’ payment on leaving, or are repatriated with the connivance of their home governments.

There’s no question we must guard against paranoia and expulsion fever. Europe’s

peoples have a right of movement across the union. There are undoubtedly many raw memories of history’s cruel hand still alive among the survivors of pogroms and

ethnic humiliation. At the same time, there’s never an excuse for rampant thieving and general lawbreaking by individuals and groups, easily identifiable by what passes for tribal costumes and ghetto attitudes.

Squalid camps don’t occur naturally, and it’s not unreasonable for ‘host’ nations to react negatively against organised crookery of the sort on trial in Romania itself, where a 26-strong gang stands accused of trafficking 200 Roma children to London to beg and steal.

The tabloid toreadors are eminently capable of inventing their own red rags to charge at. While ready to rally to the side of oppressed minorities when circulation figures demand, they can’t resist manipulating the more colourful encounters between upright locals and visitors who might threaten their peace of mind and property.

Eastern Europeans – Ukrainians, as it happens – are the latest suspects, accused of taking over English homes while the owners were absent or on holiday, changing the locks, pitching out belongings and claiming the place for their own, with, to say the least, robust defence.

Maladroit councils which grant ‘mansions’ to asylum-seeking families while refusing similar humanity to returning battle-weary soldiers, dice with columns of opprobrium.

And raising the spectre of ‘more are on the way’ is the predictable response to each breach in fortress Europe’s ramparts against the hordes from the east.

Of course for us it’s somewhat academic. Our independence – or exclusion, depending on how you view it – means we have little ‘pull’ for EU immigrants without ‘quallies’, for those attempting to enter the EU, or the UK for that matter – if you ignore the arrival of 30,000 would-be residents seventy years ago.

From our offshore vantage point we might even raise a wry smile at the sheer entrepreneurial audacity of many wily ‘victims’ who, having pocketed their 300 euro ‘bounty’ to help them re-settle in their own back yards, have been promptly hitching a lift in any convenient transport heading back west to pick up another instalment.

It’s prompted the French authorities to begin finger-printing the exiles before they bid them farewell. I’ll bet we’ve not heard the last of this. It can’t be long before EU officialdom, with more attitude than judgement, declares the practice to constitute a ‘disgraceful’ violation of their human rights.