Priti Patel, MP for Witham and parts of the Maldon District, received the eighth highest number of toxic tweets of any MP, according to a BBC survey.

Of those, 631 were deemed 'severely toxic', which is still a far cry from the 3,541 tweets directed at the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

The Conservative MP for Witham, the boundaries of which include the wards of Great Totham, Tollesbury, Tolleshunt D'Arcy and Wickham Bishops, has represented the constituency since 2010.

A survey produced by the BBC's Shared Data Unit shows the level of 'toxic' abuse MPs received on Twitter over a six-week period.

This includes the period when Ms Patel was Home Secretary, announcing a plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda on April 13.

During that time, she received 4,110 'toxic' tweets.

BBC Local News partnerships and the Shared Data Unit analysed almost three million Tweets mentioning MPs.

More than 130,000 of them were deemed 'toxic', defined as a "rude, disrespectful or unreasonable comment that is likely to make someone want to leave a conversation".

The number of tweets mentioning politicians reached more than 140,000 on April 14, after Ms Patel signed off on a deal to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

In June, then Prince of Wales, King Charles III, was claimed to have branded the policy as 'appalling'.

The first flight under this plan had been scheduled for June 14 but was cancelled at the last minute, due to intervention from the European Court of Human Rights.

Ms Patel resigned and returned to the back benches on September 5, when Liz Truss was appointed as Prime Minister.

In October, Ms Patel publicly supported Boris Johnson's return to the hot seat during the latest Conservative leadership election.

However, she has since called for unity in the party, after Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister on October 25.

The BBC survey also found Maldon's MP, Sir John Whittingdale, was the '7th most abused' MP on Twitter.