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  Courtesy Independent .............
  
  Theresa May under pressure to scale back crackdown on suspected illegal immigrants amid
  
  mounting criticism of 'racist' spot checks
  
  Tories fear spot checks and billboards are a political gift to Ukip
  
  Theresa May, the Home Secretary, was under growing pressure from within Tory ranks last night
  
  to scale back the tough new crackdown on suspected illegal immigrants amid mounting criticism
  
  of her department's tactics.
  
  The Independent disclosed last week that officials had conducted a series of "racist and intimidatory
  
  " spot checks at railway stations in areas with large ethnic minority populations.
  
  It followed controversy over a campaign in which trucks carrying the message "go home or face arrest"
  
  toured several London boroughs.
  
  Both schemes were signed off by the Home Office. But the Liberal Democrats have condemned
  
  them, insisting they were not Coalition policy.
  
  It emerged that Lynton Crosby, the Conservatives' chief election strategist, who had been widely
  
  assumed to be behind the trucks scheme, feared the initiative had played into the hands of the
  
  UK Independence Party (Ukip).
  
  He is understood to have made his displeasure clear during a private meeting with a lobbying
  
  company in London, agreeing that the initiative had created an unnecessary row over tactics and
  
  distracted from policy.
  
  It also gave a platform to Ukip's leader, Nigel Farage, who condemned the initiative as ill-conceived
  
  and "unBritish", Mr Crosby agreed.

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