A Conservative MP has revealed he was branded "dirty Jew" by constituents while out campaigning for election and still receives hateful emails along similar lines.
Ilford North MP Lee Scott told a parliamentary debate on Wednesday that when he was seeking election in 2010 he was approached by two men who "called me a dirty Jew and said they were going to kill me".
Scott said he responded with humour and told them: "I will put you down as a possible. You haven’t decided how you’re voting, have you?"
"Consequently, a week later, somebody gave me a leaflet that had been distributed in the area saying that I was an enemy of Islam, with a picture of me wearing a skull cap." He added: "I still regularly get e-mails saying that I should be stoned to death."
He warned: "The consequences of what is stirred up at a general election—whether, in my case, because I am Jewish, or in somebody else’s case, because of their sexuality, or maybe other religions, or the colour of their skin—goes on for years afterwards."
Scott was speaking during a parliamentary debate on a report into electoral conduct. Labour MP Natascha Engel, who chaired the investigation, told MPs that some of the examples of "vile rubbish" discovered was so extreme it could not be published.
"Our inquiry found that people in some areas were not putting their names forward as candidates out of fear for their lives, which happened across the board.
"Whether the tensions were religious, ethnic or based on their sexuality or gender, we found that people who would have been good candidates for elected office at any level were not putting their names forward," she said.