Ashford MP Damian Green has warned that the UK faces similar pipe bomb attacks that occurred in America if political debate sinks to personal abuse.

He said the "outrageous assault on life and decency should serve as a warning not just to Americans about the deadly potential of political aggression, but to us, too".

Writing in the Mail On Sunday, the former deputy Prime Minister said MPs who were resorting to abusive language risked provoking the same kind of incidents.

It follows widely-condemned comments made by an anonymous Conservative MP who referred to the Prime Minister as needing to bring her own noose to a meeting with backbenchers.

Mr Green wrote: "This sort of language is not just disgusting, it is corrupting and infectious.

"Labour MP Caroline Flint – who, like me, campaigned for Remain but accepts the referendum result – has now been threatened in similar terms on Twitter, being told: 'Next year you'll be hanging from a rope'. It is profoundly troubling."

He revealed that a constituent who had bombarded him with racist emails had turned out to have an unlicensed gun in his home following a police investigation.

"For several years I was bombarded with racist emails, using the N-word and complaining about 'politician traitors', from a constituent who gave his name.

"He didn’t directly threaten me, so I just ignored them.

"Then I discovered that a police investigation into other matters had revealed he kept an unlicensed gun at his home. I am more careful these days.

"The dangerous aggression now demeaning British politics is by no means confined within the Palace of Westminster.

"Some members of the public are losing all sense of decency and self-control, and this wider aggression is particularly destructive.”

"But it is time to recognise that the violence of public rhetoric has reached a new and dangerous level.

"Remember, there are some people who treat this talk of knives and nooses as a call to action."