A Thanet pensioner has made a formal complaint about MP Craig Mackinlay over a letter he wrote to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Christine Tongue, 71, was named by the MP in a letter he released before a rally staged in Ramsgate attended by Mr Corbyn.

In it, he urged the Labour leader to ban Mrs Tongue and others from the rally on the basis of postings made on Facebook that the MP said were examples of the “sharp rise in instances of anti-Semitism”.

Mrs Tongue, a member of the campaign group Momentum, said that publishing the letter had put her in fear for her personal safety, and she had raised the complaint with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

She said: “In his letter Mr Mackinlay called on the Labour leader to ban me from his rally in Ramsgate, which was due to take place the next day.”

“I am in no way anti-Semitic and I am absolutely horrified to be attacked in this way.”

Mr Mackinlay, a former Medway councillor, cited a link she posted on her Facebook page to an article by the veteran Jewish US academic Norman Finkelstein. Mrs Tongue said she had tried to contact Mr Mackinlay’s office to complain but had been unsuccessful.

In a statement from his office, the MP said: "This vexatious allegation will be swiftly dismissed. Every statement within my letter was accurate. As Jeremy Corbyn has said we all share an obligation to rid society of the scourge of anti-Semitism."