Lily Allen has said she was verbally abused by a black-cab driver, who told her to “find an immigrant to drive you, you stupid tart”, following her call for the UK to take more refugees from Calais.

The singer tweeted about the incident, which she said happened when she and her children flagged down a taxi on Friday. She called on people to “stamp out this horrible ignorance together”.

The 31-year-old added: “Having lived a life of privilege, that interaction has given me a tiny glimpse of what it feels like to be discriminated against.”

Just tried to get in a black cab with my kids. The driver looked at me and said , 'find an immigrant to drive you you stupid tart' — lily allen (@lilyallen) October 28, 2016

She was immediately accused of being a liar by several Twitter users. To one who suggested it had not happened because she did not have photographic evidence, she replied: “I had both my hands full with children, couldn’t get to my phone fast enough.”

Another cab driver wrote: “As a fellow cabby if this is fact I can only apologise for him were not all like that not acceptable, to which the singer replied:

I know. I catch black cabs all the time, London cabbies are the best in the world. https://t.co/vF9yLbQ0Nf — lily allen (@lilyallen) October 28, 2016

The incident is the latest vitriol to be directed at Allen following her outspoken views on the treatment of refugees.

This week, she waded into the debate over the ages of some of the child refugees accepted into the UK, saying “it shouldn’t matter”, and drew parallels between the UK’s failure to act and the actions of Nazi Germany.

In a piece written for Vice, Allen said: “From a very early age, we are taught about the second world war and how evil Hitler was. You always wonder how he managed to get the whole country to go along with that. Now we’re seeing it.

“But I don’t want to be a good German. I want to be on the right side of history.”

She added: “I went to Calais because I wanted to do what I can to help. I wanted to try to remind people of the humanity at the heart of the crisis, at a time when refugees were being demonised in the press. But after the film of my trip aired I found myself caught in a familiar constellation of tabloid and social media aggressors.

“It’s not the fault of refugees, it’s about the lack of services available in this country. The government have found a group of vulnerable people they can blame their own failures on.”

After visiting the Calais refugee camp to volunteer in a charity warehouse, Allen was bombarded with abuse online and labelled an “indulged idiot” by the tabloids for a video of her apologising “on behalf of my country” to a 13-year-old Afghan boy who had been living in the camp for two months.

“It just seems that, at three different intervals in this young boy’s life, the English in particular have put you in danger,” she told Shamsher Sherin, who had been attempting to jump on the back of lorries to cross the Channel and be reunited with his father living in Birmingham.

“We’ve bombed your country, put you in the hands of the Taliban and now put you in danger of risking your life to get into our country.

“I apologise on behalf of my country. I’m sorry for what we have put you through.”