Rachel Riley is seeking £50,000 in damages after a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s staff claimed she had said the Labour leader “deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi.”

Court documents revealed the host of Channel 4’s Countdown is seeking the figure from Laura Murray in addition to legal costs, the Sunday Times reported.

The libel claim comes after Ms Riley disputed the contents of a tweet Ms Murray posted in March, when Mr Corbyn was allegedly assaulted by someone who reportedly broke an egg over his head.

Following the incident, Ms Murray tweeted: “Today Jeremy Corbyn went to his local mosque for visit my mosque day, and was attacked by a Brexiteer.

“Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi.

“This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.”

But Ms Riley said her own post, which quoted a tweet from left-wing commentator Owen Jones, was not a reference to Mr Corbyn and should not be interpreted to mean the Labour leader himself was a Nazi and deserved to be egged.

She said Ms Murray’s tweet about her was an “appalling distortion of the truth.”

Ms Murray subsequently deleted her tweet.

The JC reported in March that Ms Riley had instructed Mark Lewis, who came to prominence representing the victims of phone hacking, to pursue the claim.