The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has revealed he has 24-hour police protection after receiving numerous threats on social media.

Mr Khan told The Times newspaper in the UK the abuse has gone from "name-calling, trolling and threats to terrorism" and has affected his family.

According to the report, Mr Khan received 237 threats on social media and London's City Hall referred 17 cases to police over three months.

"You can't escape the fact that those close to me are worried," he said.

"It can't be right that one of the consequences of me being the mayor of London and a Muslim in public life is that I have police protection."

He added: "What sort of message does it send to my children's generation who want to get into politics?"

He said levels of abuse had risen since the Brexit referendum in 2016.

"The referendum campaign allowed things to come to the surface and normalised things that should not be normalised," he said.

The politician also warned that the threats could lead to violence, saying: "It starts with name-calling, it can lead to criminal damage and graffiti (and) ultimately to the situation where Jo Cox is murdered or a terrorist can come to London and try to divide communities."

British Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed by a man who described himself as a "political activist", as she was holding a constituency surgery in 2016.

In recent months, a number of British MPs have claimed they have received death threats or been attacked.