'Racist vans' didn't work, admits May.

The government's controversial 'racist van' scheme has been permanently scrapped after just one person was persuaded to leave the country.

The £10,000 billboard campaign warning illegal immigrants to "go home or face arrest" was piloted in six London boroughs earlier this year.


One Pakistani man contacted the Home Office over the summer after reading about the campaign in the Guardian. He had not seen any of the vans himself.

Sources close to Theresa May admitted the scheme had not worked.

"She doesn’t think there was anything wrong with the principle of the scheme but it is clear it has not been effective," a source said.

The scheme faced strong opposition from the Conservative's Liberal Democrat coalition partners, who claimed not to have been aware of the pilot until it began.

It was also condemned by Labour and Ukip.

Earlier this month the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that claims about arrest numbers on the adverts, were inaccurate and should not be repeated.

"The ad must not appear again in its current form," the ASA report said.

The government plans to push ahead with a separate scheme to text illegal immigrants urging them to go home.

This scheme also caused controversy after a number of British citizens were texted in error.

It has met with surprise opposition from Ukip, whose leader Nigel Farage described the texts as "utterly repugnant" and "the sort of behaviour one would expect from a fascistic police state".

The Home Office say they have received around 140 complaints about the scheme but insist only 14 people out of a total of 58,800 were contacted in error.

Culled from Yahoo Politics UK.