Labour's bid to halt 'racist' flight to deport 50 criminals: Two child rapists and a murderer are among those on Jamaica jet that some MPs want grounded

Child rapists are among criminals due to be deported to Jamaica tomorrow – despite Labour politicians campaigning to keep them in Britain.

The Home Office is attempting to fly out up to 50 Jamaican nationals, including a murderer and a paedophile who raped a girl under 16.

A third was also convicted of raping a child, the Daily Mail can reveal. A fourth served a jail term for attempted murder while a fifth was convicted of multiple rapes of adults, with others guilty of violent crimes.

But Labour MPs called for the flight to be stopped and claimed most of the criminals were 'non-violent'. Former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott described the use of the flights as a 'racist dragnet'. She said: 'The Home Office justification for these flights is that the people being deported are all dangerous criminals.

'It is true that they have all broken the law. But most have been convicted for non-violent drug offences and four got deportation orders for their first and only offence. They have all actually served the sentence for their crime. The deportation is by way of being a double jeopardy.

The Home Office is attempting to fly out up to 50 Jamaican nationals. Pictured: Group of campaigners outside Downing Street in February this year

'It is an arbitrary sentence that the British state is able to impose, in practice, because the deportees are not white.' She wrote on website Labour Outlook: 'A racist dragnet is cast over a particular community. In this case it is the Jamaican community. There needs to be a moratorium on these mass deportation flights.'

Fellow Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy told website Left Foot Forward last week that deportation flights should be cancelled, insisting: 'Deportation is a discriminatory and disproportionate double punishment for people who have committed minor offences and grown up in the UK.'

MP Claudia Webbe, who had the Labour whip withdrawn last year, has written to the Prime Minister urging him to 'cancel this and all similar future mass deportation flights'. She said: 'This is cruel, racist and disproportionate punishment that is not designed to make Britain safer but instead designed to stoke the flames of racial hatred and division.'

A number of the Jamaican nationals have begun legal challenges in a bid to stay in the UK, including new asylum claims. None of the 50 is a British citizen, but some have lived here since childhood. Campaigners also called for tomorrow's flight to be cancelled after a Covid outbreak at a detention centre where some of the group are being held.

Anti-deportation group Movement for Justice claimed the Home Office had 'blood on its hands in pursuit of these racist mass deportations'. 

The Home Office said: 'We make no apology for seeking to remove dangerous foreign criminals and those with no right to remain in the UK.'

Former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott has described the use of the flights as a 'racist dragnet' File