Oona King, the Labour MP ousted by anti-war rebel George Galloway, said today that she was regularly abused as a "yid" and a "Jewish bitch" during an ill-tempered election campaign.

Ms King lost her Bethnal Green and Bow seat in London’s East End by just 823 votes after Mr Galloway's criticism of the Iraq war won the support of the large Muslim minority in the constituency. The seat had previously been held by Labour since 1924.

In an interview for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she described it as "one of the dirtiest campaigns we have ever seen in British politics" and gave warning of the implications for future elections.

"I was fairly shocked by the levels to which it sank," she said. "The thing that I am proudest of in this country is that we have a political system where political intimidation doesn’t exist. That, actually, for the first time came to the fore in Bethnal Green and Bow, and I think people around the country should be worried about it."

Mr Galloway formed his own Respect party after being expelled from Labour over his outspoken criticism of the war. He chose to fight Bethnal Green and Bow, where 39.2 per cent of the population are Muslim, on an anti-war ticket.

His opponent, in contrast, was a long-time opponent of Saddam Hussein's regime, and voted in favour of the war. Ms King, who is black with a Jewish mother, said that she had faced regular anti-Semitic abuse during the campaign.

"The fact that my mother was Jewish came up all of the time in a quite disturbing way," she said. "As a kid it was always ’oi, you nigger’, ’you wog’ and all the rest of it, and now it was ’yids’, ’you Jewish bitch, get out of here’, all of that sort of stuff."

During the campaign, unknown attackers threw eggs at Ms King at a Holocaust memorial service. She was later again pelted with eggs and had her car tyres slashed by a gang of youths who were protesting against her support for the Iraq war.

Mr Galloway's election team repeatedly denied during the election that any of its supporters had abused Ms King or used anti-Semitic language against her. Respect said it would consider legal action if she repeated such "outrageous rubbish".

"This is one of the most disgusting slurs I can remember for a long time," said John Rees, national secretary of Respect.

"George Galloway and everyone in Respect has a long record of fighting anti-Semitism - longer I suspect than Oona King. This kind of rubbish is libellous. Oona King should be more cognisant of the dangers, having already paid out two sets of libel writs to George."

The contest between the two politicians became bitter and deeply personal. In March, Ms King paid Mr Galloway's legal costs and made a £1,000 donation to charity over allegations she made in a press release about sexual impropriety.

Asked how he felt standing against one of only two black women MPs, Mr Galloway claimed that Ms King "voted to kill a lot of women in the last few years. Many of them had much darker skins than her". Ms King retaliated by attacking the salute Mr Galloway once gave to Saddam Hussein on a visit to Iraq.

Ms King, 37, also said today that Mr Galloway had called for the resignation of the returning officer after the result was announced, even though the official had turned down her own call for a recount.

"My eyebrows nearly left my head at the point at which he called for her resignation because of incompetence and all the rest," she said.

"I thought it’s just insane. She’s just ensured that he has no legalities kicking about, he’s straight up, there’s no delay, he’s the Member of Parliament and instantaneously he wants her head on a plate."

She gave warning that having won the seat, in her view, Mr Galloway would not be a good constituency MP.

"George Galloway said about me, ’There’s one thing I can tell you with certainty - that Oona King will not win this election’. He turned out to be right," she said. "There is one thing I can tell you with certainty. George Galloway will never serve my constituents the way I did."

Ms King admitted that right until the end, she had thought that she would win the seat. "My biggest fear had always been that I would win and then do a Gwyneth Paltrow or something and just completely lose it. In the event, I did lose it - it being the election - but I didn’t lose it," she said.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Olympic-size television coming to your town
• Mosley opens new front in battle for privacy
• Decorator fined for smoking in van