An MP has received multiple death threats in the last year, leading him to check his family’s cars for booby traps and close his drop-in surgery.

Lee Scott, the Conservative representative for Ilford North, said in parliament he’d had five threats made to his life, including a caller who told him he should be “stoned to death”.

The MP also spoke about abuse he suffered during the 2010 general election, when two people called him a dirty little pig to his face before saying they would kill him.

Speaking about the incident on BBC London, Mr Scott said: “Whenever I'm scared, I've always since I was a child used humour, and I said to them 'shall I put you down as a possible or have you not decided how you're voting'?

“I realised how stupid I was [being], and ran as fast as my little legs could carry me,” he told host Vanessa Feltz.

The MP said he cried when he got home, but that vicious threats are the least of Jews’ worries: “The people who tell you they're going to do something to you, will very rarely do it. It's people who aren't going to tell you that you've got to worry about.”

He emphasised that victims should report attacks so that they show up in official statistics, saying: “If someone does do something and it's not reported then it simply hasn't happened.

“Then when the authorities want to tackle something, they'll say 'this is what the figures are and what they show' so it is important that they report it.”

Antisemitism in London has increased by 93 per cent in the last 12 months, according to the Metropolitan Police.