Bribery claim as migrants are held for Rwanda flights

Ministers have been accused of trying to bribe voters after they released pictures of the first asylum seekers being rounded up for deportation to Rwanda – and announced one other had agreed to voluntarily relocate for £3,000 – on the eve of today’s local elections.

- KATE DEVLIN , ARCHIE MITCHELL & HOLLY BANCROFT

Downing Street insisted the raids were an important step towards getting Rishi Sunak’s controversial policy airborne, and denied the operation was a cynical attempt to woo voters ahead of poll results that could decide the prime minister’s future.

His press secretary said: “For our part there really is not a day to lose when people are dying in the channel.”

Officers began detaining potential deportees on Monday at their homes or as they came to report at immigration centres – even though the first flights are not due to depart for at least another nine weeks. Around 800 officers are deployed on what has been dubbed Operation Vector, and home secretary James Cleverly said they were working “at pace”.

But a spokesperson for shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the raids were a “desperate attempt by the Tories to look tough on immigration on the eve of polling day”.

The Lib Dems also denounced it as “cynical nonsense from a Conservative party that is about to take a drubbing”.

Tony Blair’s former aide John McTernan said he thought it was a “clear breach of the civil service code”.

Labour MP Barry Gardiner said ministers were “clearly desperate to show some progress on this miserable scheme before the local elections. But to actually give away £3,000 of public money to get individuals to go voluntarily looks like nothing more than a bribe. The Rwanda legislation is about forcibly deporting people, not sending them off with a fat wallet. This is no more than an electoral stunt that will backfire as it encourages people to think that if they come to the UK, they will be set up in a new life with thousands of pounds.”