Britain's policies on austerity, immigration and tackling terrorism are racist, a United Nations watchdog has claimed.

Ministers hit back after Tendayi Achiume, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on racism, called for the anti-terrorism Prevent strategy to be shut down and anti-immigration laws to be repealed.

A Home Office source said the criticism was not based on "reality" while former Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith said her claims were “complete rubbish”.

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the influential European Research group, said: "The UN ought to have better things to do than issue tendentious reports abut the UK."

Prof Achiume - who has just finished a 12 day visit to the UK - accused the Government of using austerity measures to subordinate people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Unveiling her preliminary findings in London on Friday, Prof Achiume said: “Austerity measures today appear inadvertently to function as a prime instrument of racial subordination.”