The Home Office is facing further woe over its immigration policies after the advertising watchdog launched a fresh investigation into its controversial "go home" ad vans.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had received 60 complaints about the mobile billboards including concerns the ads were "reminiscent of slogans used by racist groups to attack immigrants in the past".
The ASA probe is in addition to another investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) into a wave of immigration spot checks across the UK.
Chris Bryant MP, Labour's shadow immigration minister, said: "This is another embarrassing blow to a Government.
"With more people absconding at the border and fewer illegal immigrants being returned, David Cameron and Theresa May can't even get the basics right, stumbling from one shambles to another."
Ads warning overstaying migrants to "Go home, or you'll be picked up and deported" appeared last month in six London boroughs.
The ASA said some complainants have also questioned whether a claim in the advert reading "106 arrests last week in your area" was misleading.
A spokesman for the Home Office said: "We can confirm we are in contact with the ASA over this investigation and we will respond in due course."
The EHRC launched its probe after it was claimed that the spot checks were being carried out by border officials purely on the basis of ethnicity.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article