Countdown’s Rachel Riley has said she is to receive extra security after she was subjected to online abuse and threats for speaking out about antisemitism.
Ms Riley, who is Jewish, said she has been targeted by Labour supporters on Twitter since she has used her profile online to criticise the party and the leader Jeremy Corbyn.
She said the abuse she receives has become worse and now included physical threats.
She added: “We are getting more security for Countdown. By speaking up against antisemitism you are a target. I don’t take it lightly.
“The more I speak, the more abuse I get, and the more abuse I get the more I speak.
“It’s got to the point where I can’t look at my Twitter feed any more. It’s just a constant stream.’
In December, Ms Riley said she received a barrage of abuse after she shared a video by anti-racist campaigners that condemned antisemitism in football.
She shared a three-minute long video, which was developed by the football equality organisation Kick It Out and Chelsea football club.
But after sharing the video, which showed how antisemitic abuse is still prevalent in English football, she said she was “inevitably confronted with weird and aggressive posts about Israel and Zionists”.
Since then, she has used her Twitter profile to raise concerns about the antisemitism she had received and seen elsewhere and become embroiled in the row about Jew-hate within Labour.
Ms Riley said she had become a "target" for speaking up against antisemitism.
Speaking to The Times, she said abuse on Twitter was often accompanied by “the hashtag Get The Tories Out or the red rose or hashtag JC4PM, they say to me, ‘You’re only calling out the left.’
"Well, I have been attacked by people on the left and the best way to not have me talk about antisemitism on the left is not to be antisemitic’”
