How  EU Parlamentarian Hannes Swoboda made many enemies in the UK.

It was 11 pm on Sunday night two weeks ago when a group of Lithuanians broke down the door to a bedsit in Maidstone and beat up two Italians. Joele Leotta had just put on his pyjamas and was ready to go to sleep. Hours later he died in hospital from the wounds he suffered in the attack. His friend Alex Galbiati survived. Four alleged perpetrators - Aleksandes Zuravliovas, 26, Tomas Gelezinis, 30, Sualus Tamoliunas, 23, and Linas Zidonis, 21 - stand accused of murder. So far, so terrible.

But the case has already left the small stage of Maidstone, the county town of Kent, and entered the big political arena between Brussels and London. Hannes Swoboda, President of the Social Democratic faction in the European Parliament, has accused the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Tory-led coalition government of stoking the emotions that lead to such violence: "The xenophobic, aggressive climate inflamed by populists such as UKIP and by the rhetoric of the Conservatives in government is now leading to murder in the streets of Britain," he said.

One of the murderers allegedly shouted: “You are stealing our jobs!”, when storming into the Italian’s flat.

UKIP chief Nigel Farage was not amused: “Hannes Swoboda is so blinded by hate against people who do not support this view of full political union in the EU that he levels accusations without checking the facts,” he commented.

But not only political enemies criticised Swoboda’s accusation. The British Labour party also felt he had gone too far: ‘These comments are deplorable and we do not support them,” a Labour spokesman said.

Swoboda could not understand this reaction: “Why is the Labour Party not fighting right-wing populist politics?” he told “Profil”.

“Great Britain always was a country of immigrants. This is changing. Now the talk is about the Bulgarians and Rumanians, who allegedly come to steal jobs from the British workforce. UKIP and the Conservatives have created a climate which leads to violence. It only needs a crazy guy to snap and pick up a murder weapon.”

The Labour Party continues to distance itself from these comments: “As we said before, Hannes Swoboda does not speak for the Labour Party”, a spokesman told “Profil”.

There is a reason, why Labour does not want to enter this arena. Since the financial crisis in 2008, the British debate has become a lot less friendly towards the European Union in particular and immigrants in general. At the beginning of the year, the government even thought about an ad campaign to keep Bulgarians and Romanians from moving to the UK when current temporary restrictions expire in January 2014 along the theme: “It rains constantly.”

UKIP boss Farage had told his supporters that up to 400,000 new EU-immigrants can be expected next year – a xenophobic fantasy which is empirically unfounded. According to think-tank Migration Watch, there might be 50,000 job-seekers from Romania and Bulgaria arriving in the UK per year. The ‘Rain’ ad campaign never saw the light of day. But the xenophobic feelings remain.

Labour chief Ed Miliband thinks it better to stay away from the debate and does not appreciate Swoboda’s well-intentioned comments. The Conservatives for their part continue with half-hearted measures to keep voters from running off to join UKIP. They tested another ad campaign this autumn in London: “Text Home to 78070” posters informed illegal immigrants that the government was ready to help them self-deport. Or face arrest. The campaign was shelved quickly. The policy might have created “confusion between illegal immigrants and members of ethnic minority communities who are entitled to be in the UK”, said Sayeeda Warsi, Minister of State for Faith and Communities in the Tory government.

Joele Leotta only came to the UK ten days before his violent death. On Facebook he told his friends his new life was “perfect”: He had a job and had learned English. A few days later his parents travelled from Nibionno next to Milan to Maidstone – not for a visit, but to identify his corpse.