A Kent MP has condemned racist abuse of England players – but says people had the right to boo footballers who took the knee.

MPs have called on social media companies to do more to tackle racist abuse posted on their platforms following a torrent of vile messages directed at Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka after they missed in last night's penalty shoot out.

Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Gordon Henderson is among those calling for more action.

He said: “This kind of behaviour is shocking; these people are racist idiots who hide behind their keyboards and their mobile phones which they believe makes them anonymous and in some ways it does. But they are known by these media platform operators and I believe they should be rooted out and referred to the police so they can be prosecuted.

"We have got to do something to ensure people can not just post on Twitter or Facebook what they like because they are anonymous.

“We have got to do something that makes it visibly possible for people to check who they are and where they come from; one of the reasons I don't allow posts on Facebook is that I do not know whether they come from Sheppey or Liverpool or Singapore.”

But he defended the government against criticisms that it was not calling out racists.

“We should allow protests. There’s no doubt about it. If people don't agree with footballers taking the knee, they should be able to boo... they are not booing the players, what they are doing is booing the support given to the Black Lives Matter campaign. I don’t agree with them but they have every right to do that. But they are not anonymous they are standing in a crowd and can be easily identified,” he added.

He said: “The biggest problem is that they are idiots; the government does not make them idiots.”

Meanwhile the Ashford MP Damian Green has also urged social media operators to pull down posts that were using racist emojis.

“If they are being used in an unacceptable context as clearly it was over the past 24 hours, then they should take down those posts immediately and see if they can find out who the person was behind them and get them off the platform.”

Meanwhile the Folkestone and Hythe MP Damian Collins took to Twitter to ask: “How can @TwitterUK be effectively enforcing its policy on hate speech when so much racist abuse directed at England footballers was allowed to spread on the platform. How many accounts have been deleted for this since last night?”

Earlier Maidstone's Hazlitt Theatre cancelled Andrew Lawrence's upcoming comedy gig after he Tweeted racist remarks about the players.

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