The Brexit vote was fuelled by racists who did not like seeing people who look 'foreign' on their streets, Diane Abbott has claimed

People who are concerned about freedom of movement do not like seeing people who look 'foreign' on their streets, Diane Abbott has claimed.

Labour's health spokesman said 'people who talk Brexit' had 'attacked and assaulted' ethnic minority voters and East Europeans after the referendum.

Responding to her comments, Tory MPs from ethnic minorities accused her of making 'totally inflammatory' claims that smeared Leave voters as 'stupid and racist' when they simply wanted to take back control of Britain's borders.

Miss Abbott told a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference in Liverpool: 'The Brexit vote, whatever you think of that vote, has added another turn of the screw to rising racism. The Brexit vote and the Leave people winning seems to have given far too many people permission to racially abuse and attack people all over the country.

'People, not just East Europeans, but people of all colours, are being attacked and assaulted by people who talk about Brexit ... There has been this upsurge after this Brexit vote in horrible, horrible attacks.'

Miss Abbott said that when people spoke about immigrants, they often included people like her from ethnic minority backgrounds who had been British for several generations.

'The people who complain about freedom of movement will not be satisfied because what they want is to see less foreign-looking people on their street and that's not going to happen,' she said. The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington went on to claim that voters' concerns over immigration were 'not rational'.

She said: 'It is the areas with the least immigrants by and large that feel the most viscerally about immigration. There is no point conceding because you can't go far enough.'

Miss Abbott also took a swipe at moderate Labour MPs such as Rachel Reeves and Chuka Umunna, who have argued that access to the single market could be sacrificed if that is the price of curbing freedom of movement from the EU.

And she added: 'I'm not one of these people who thinks we should vote again, I really don't, I think it would be fundamentally undemocratic.'

Miss Abbott said that when people spoke about immigrants, they often included people like her from ethnic minority backgrounds who had been British for several generations

James Cleverly, a Tory MP whose mother came from Sierra Leone in West Africa, said: 'Once again Diane Abbott has embarrassed herself and her party. She has projected her prejudices onto others and reinforced the perception that Labour are out of touch.'

Fellow Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, who came to Britain as a refugee from Iraq, added: 'This is a stupid and totally inflammatory claim that smears 17.4 million voters, many of them of BME [black and minority ethnic] background.

'People of colour care about having politicians that are accountable to them as much as anyone else. They, like anyone else, wanted to take back control of our borders.'

An earlier version of this article stated that Diane Abbott MP had called those who voted for Brexit 'stupid and racist'. We are happy to clarify that this was in fact the phrase used by Tory MPs who responded to Ms Abbott's remarks at a meeting at the Labour party conference.