Italy’s far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, has denied he is going to Liverpool after the mayor of the city said “the only audience he’ll find here is one that won’t be shy in telling him what they think of fascists like him.”

The mayor of the Liverpool city region, Steve Rotheram, said Salvini’s “division and hate” would not be welcomed in the city after reports Lega nel Mondo, a global network of the League established by Salvini in 2018, was holding an event in March.

“My presence in Liverpool was never scheduled,” Salvini told reporters on Thursday.

“What is happening there is not a rally, but a dinner among supporters of the League in Liverpool – they are going to eat fish and chips,” he said.

“It’s the same kind of thing our supporters have done in Brazil, Switzerland, Belgium or Canada, and it’s never happened before that a mayor has intervened in a dinner among free citizens who are neither subversives or crazies.”

Salvini added that “Liverpool is a beautiful city” that he would like to visit one day, while inviting Rotheram to Milan “to eat osso buco or polenta”.

“That way we’ll show him that Milan hasn’t been invaded by fascists. I’m sorry that someone has made a judgment without knowing the facts.”

On Wednesday, the Italian senate formally authorised a criminal case against Salvini, who is accused of kidnapping last year when, as interior minister, he prevented 131 migrants from disembarking from a coastguard ship.

The Italian court of ministers in Catania, Sicily, ruled in December that Salvini should be tried for allegedly depriving the asylum-seekers onboard the Gregoretti coastguard ship of their liberty by refusing to allow them to leave.

“I did my duty,” Salvini said on Thursday. “I think it’s bizarre that they’re sending me to trial. I’m not happy about it as I’m going to be spending my days reading thousands of legal documents when I’ve got much better things to be doing, like winning elections.”

• This article was amended on 17 February 202 because an earlier version misdescribed Steve Rotheram as “Liverpool’s mayor”. Rotheram is the metro mayor of the Liverpool city region.