LONDON’S Green MEP Jean Lambert has said she is delighted that that Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned the use of a ‘nasty and offensive’ ad van telling the capital’s migrants to ‘go home or face arrest’.

In July two advertising vans drove around the London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Barnet, Brent, Ealing and Hounslow, some of the most diverse areas of the capital, displaying a picture of handcuffs and the slogan: “In the UK illegally?… GO HOME OR FACE ARREST.”

The advert said there had been 106 arrests in the area in the past week and encouraged illegal immigrants to contact immigration officials for information on how they could be helped to leave the country.

The adverts were widely condemned as offensive and racist at the time, and the ASA received more than 200 complaints about their use.

In its ruling, the ASA said the reference to the number of arrests was misleading because it did not relate to those detained in the specific areas where people would have seen the vans – but it said they were neither irresponsible nor offensive.

Ms Lambert, the Green Party’s Immigration Spokesperson, commenting on today’s ruling, said:

“The use of this van showed us how the Tory Party has really become the ‘nasty party’ of old: trying to use fear and intimidation of migrants as a way of imposing an increasingly inhumane migration policy.

“I’m glad it has now been banned: the Advertising Standards Authority has made the right decision, albeit for the weakest possible reason, that it was misleading rather than because it was offensive or irresponsible.”