A petition’s been launched following an increase in racist attacks that have been reported since the EU referendum result on Friday.

Scores of people have taken to Twitter to report witnessing abuse in the streets across the UK.

Channel 4 journalist Simon Israel earlier today (June 27) tweeted: “Police have confirmed a rise in hate crime reports that many people are linking to the outcome of the EU Referendum.”

A campaigner is now calling on the Home Office to ‘condemn’ the racism and announce how it intends to respond to it.

Petition starter Esmet Jeraj told Change.org: “I’ve started this petition because the level of xenophobic and racist attacks post Brexit are incredibly worrying.

“The divisive campaign run in the lead up to the referendum has fuelled and legitimised discrimination in a number of forms, and this is distorting the country I’ve always called home.

“Unfortunately the government is too focused on internal politics and in fighting to see the impact on community cohesion and the very real fear members of different communities are now living with.”

Her petition states: “Many of my friends have been victims of this abuse. I cannot express how frightening it has become to be a person from an ethnic community. It feels like we have regressed as society, and are going back to the eighties.

“We’re living in turbulent times — the country is in limbo and we don’t know what the future will look like. Silence is no longer an option. Instead of internal fighting and party politics, the Government needs to do it’s job and make sure that communities are safe. What we need right now is security and solidarity.

“We need the Home Office to publicly condemn this activity, call for unity and to state how they are tackling the rising problem across the UK.”

For more information about this campaign go to change.org/PostRefRacism or email press.uk@change.org