THE Jamaican high commission in London was besieged today by dozens of angry demonstrators demanding that diplomats halt the first mass deportation to the Caribbean since the Windrush scandal erupted.

A specially chartered Home Office plane is due to take off from a secret location this week carrying around 50 people to Jamaica. 

One man facing expulsion is popular Mancunian DJ Owen Haisley, who has lived in Britain for over four decades.

He is being held in Harmondsworth detention centre outside Heathrow airport.

Addressing the protesters by phone, he said: “I want to give a big thankyou to everyone for the support.”

He described the situation as “outrageous” and said how hard it was to explain to his three children what was happening to their father.

Mr Haisley’s friends and families staged a simultaneous protest in Manchester.

Luke de Noronha, an academic researching deportations, told the Morning Star that Jamaican diplomats could stop the deportation if there was the political will.

“Every state is obliged to accept its nationals, but some countries just refuse or do not facilitate redocumentation,” he said.

“Britain and Jamaica, on the other hand, have a very functional working relationship – the Jamaican government verify and redocument [provide emergency travel documents] willingly.”

Campaign group Movement for Justice (MFJ), which is in touch with many people booked on the flight, told the London rally that one man among them had been born in Britain to parents of the Windrush generation and holds a British passport. 

MFJ activist Karen Doyle was also critical of Labour’s shadow home secretary.

“It is not good enough that Diane Abbott is talking about only protecting British citizens,” Ms Doyle said, adding that nationality was “based on laws that were passed in the ’60s and ’70s on the back of Enoch Powell’s Keep Britain White campaigns.”

Jamaica-based activist Lloyd D’Aguilar told the Star that he congratulated protesters in Britain and said a similar demonstration was needed in Jamaica to “shame” the country’s parliament and its Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

Mr D’Aguilar, who campaigns for justice over the 2010 Tivoli Gardens massacre by Jamaican authorities, warned: “Right here in Jamaica, the human rights of citizens are violated on a daily basis – extrajudicial killings by police are the highest in the world.

“At this moment, there is a plan for the security forces to violently remove vendors from the street, again in violation of laws which make this act illegal and unconstitutional.” 

The Jamaican high commission did not respond to a request for comment about the deportation.