Politicians accused of using Gypsies and Travellers as political footballs after local candidates for May polls placed hostile ads

Pledges to remove unauthorised Travellers’ camps in Britain featured prominently in Tory Facebook adverts ahead of the local elections during May, prompting accusations that the party has used Gypsies and Travellers as “political footballs”.

The Guardian identified 47 Facebook adverts bought by local Conservative candidates since January that promised to oppose unauthorised pitches. The adverts were placed by about 20 different Facebook pages and have been seen at least 440,000 times since January, according to transparency data from the social networking site.

Related: Blanket bans on camping by Gypsies and Travellers ruled illegal at high court

This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.