Jeremy Corbyn questioned whether Boris Johnson could have been deported to the United States because he ‘dabbled in class A drugs’ and ‘conspired’ to beat up a journalist.

The Labour leader provoked a furious reaction from the Conservative benches after asking the Prime Minister if there is ‘one rule for young black boys from the Caribbean and another for white boys from the United States’.

In a thinly veiled dig at the Prime Minister, Mr Corbyn appeared to compare the actions of deported Jamaican nationals with that of New York-born Mr Johnson, who said the outgoing Labour leader had ‘demeaned himself’ by conflating the Windrush generation with deporting those he called ‘foreign national offenders’.

Some 50 people were originally expected to be on a chartered deportation flight to Jamaica that left the UK at around 7.30am on Tuesday.

But it took off with 17 on board after a last-minute legal battle between the Government and human rights campaigners.

Officials and ministers have said all were foreign criminals who committed serious offences, although campaigners, supported by 150 MPs, say they came to the country as children, are ‘British in every meaningful way’, and some were sentenced for one-time drug offences when they were young.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions earlier, Mr Corbyn asked: ‘Does the Prime Minister think that someone who came to this country at the age of five and was the victim of county lines grooming and compelled to carry drugs, released five years ago and never re-offended deserves to be deported?’

Mr Johnson replied: ‘I think the whole country would agree that, while I cannot comment on individual cases, it is entirely right that foreign national offenders should be deported from this country in accordance with the law.’

Mr Corbyn – who later tweeted the question after it caused a stir on social media – said the Government has ‘learned nothing’ from the Windrush scandal, adding: ‘This cruel and callous Government is trying to mislead the British people into thinking it’s solely deporting foreign nationals who are guilty of murder, rape and other very serious offences.

‘This is clearly not the case. Take the example of a young black boy who came to the UK aged five and is now being deported after serving time for a drugs offence.’

To groans from the Tory benches, Mr Corbyn added: ‘If there was a case of a young white boy with blond hair who later dabbled in class A drugs and conspired with a friend to beat up a journalist, would he deport that boy?

‘Or is it one rule for young black boys from the Caribbean and another for white boys from the United States?’

Mr Corbyn had faced criticism during the election campaign for refusing to make personal attacks on Mr Johnson, insisting that he would refrain from low blows.

But today’s intervention appeared to take a different tone, as he referred to repeated allegations of Mr Johnson taking cocaine and a recording of a phone call with his friend Darius Guppy, in which they discuss giving journalist Stuart Collier a ‘couple of black eyes’ and a ‘cracked rib’.

The PM responded: ‘I think quite frankly that Mr Corbyn demeans himself and by the way besmirches the reputation of the Windrush generation who came to this country to work in our public services, to teach our children in this country, to make lives better for people in this country.

‘He has no right to conflate them with those foreign national offenders that we are deporting today.’

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