A Labour MP who has been the victim of vicious abuse by trolls on social media has called for them to lose their anonymity online.

Jess Phillips said Parliament needs to act against the anonymous trolls who abuse her on a daily basis.

The Birmingham Yardley MP said she wanted to see changes which would mean that account holders would have to disclose their real identity to Facebook and Twitter, although they could still post messages anonymously.

Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Ms Phillips said: “In one night I received 600 rape threats. It was probably more, but I stopped counting.

“To try and subvert that, I received thousands of comments from people saying ‘I wouldn’t even rape her’.”