The mayor of London has said Donald Trump’s term as US president led to a significant rise in racial abuse directed at him.

While on a five-day trade mission to the US, Sadiq Khan told San Francisco’s Stanford University “during those four years he was president, that led to me having police protection and a lot of racial abuse”.

He added the temporary and permanent banning of Mr Trump from Twitter led to a substantial drop in such abuse.

Mr Trump first criticised Mr Khan, who was the first Muslim to be elected as the mayor of a major Western city, for his response to the London Bridge terror attacks in 2017.

During his 2019 visit to the UK, the former US president later called the London leader a “stone cold loser” who had failed to manage crime rates in the capital.

It comes as Elon Musk, the richest man in the world declared he would reverse Donald Trump’s “foolish” ban from the platform as part of the plans to make permanent account suspensions a “rare thing” and support more free speech.

This has prompted warning that hundreds of profiles belonging to the “very worst” trolls previously banned from the site could return.

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The Tesla boss recently agreed a deal to buy Twitter for £34.5bn ($44bn) and his takeover deal is set to be finalised later this year.

Mr Khan used his appearance at the Stanford Speakers Bureau to offer advice to the Mr Musk on the former president’s return to the platform.

He told students: “If it’s the case that Donald Trump is going to use Twitter responsibly, I think that’s all well and good.

“If he breaks the rules, there needs to be consequences and we can’t afford a situation where people think social media is where people behave irresponsibly, where you see an increase in not just racism, sexism and misogyny but also division.

“I hope Elon Musk, now he’s in charge of Twitter, understands that.”

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