The Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain said the Brexit vote appeared to have emboldened some people to commit hate crimes in the UK.

Speaking in London on Monday, Miqdaad Versi said that hundreds of hate crimes had been committed across the country in the past two days since the vote to leave the EU.

He said that the type of language being used in the abuse indicated that there was some sort of link with the referendum result.

Versi said it was now very important that civic society and politicians stood up to this racism and bigotry.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has asked London police to be on heightened alert to deal with a possible increase in hate crimes as a result of the Brexit vote.

Khan said on Monday that there would be "zero tolerance" of any attempt to divide communities. He spoke after a Polish diplomat complained about abuse directed at the Polish community since Thursday's vote.

A Polish community centre in west London was vandalised and police in Cambridgeshire are looking into reports of racist notes being given to Polish residents.

Immigration was a big issue in the vote, with those wanting to take Britain out of the EU saying it would make it easier for Britain to control its borders.

Prime Minister David Cameron has also condemned a spate of racist attacks since the referendum, saying he would "not tolerate intolerance".

The Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain said the Brexit vote appeared to have emboldened some people to commit hate crimes in the UK.

Speaking in London on Monday, Miqdaad Versi said that hundreds of hate crimes had been committed across the country in the past two days since the vote to leave the EU.

He said that the type of language being used in the abuse indicated that there was some sort of link with the referendum result.

Versi said it was now very important that civic society and politicians stood up to this racism and bigotry.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has asked London police to be on heightened alert to deal with a possible increase in hate crimes as a result of the Brexit vote.

Khan said on Monday that there would be "zero tolerance" of any attempt to divide communities. He spoke after a Polish diplomat complained about abuse directed at the Polish community since Thursday's vote.

A Polish community centre in west London was vandalised and police in Cambridgeshire are looking into reports of racist notes being given to Polish residents.

Immigration was a big issue in the vote, with those wanting to take Britain out of the EU saying it would make it easier for Britain to control its borders.

Prime Minister David Cameron has also condemned a spate of racist attacks since the referendum, saying he would "not tolerate intolerance".

London – 27 June 2016

1. Set up of Assistant Secretary General of Muslim Council of Britain Miqdaad Versi

2. Close-up of Versi

3. SOUNDBITE (English) Miqdaad Versi, Assistant Secretary General of Muslim Council of Britain:

"What we can say is that in the last two days we've had hundreds of hate crimes across the country, and they type of language that has been used, like 'Go back to your own country', 'We voted this way, now you have to get out,' - that type of language indicates there is some sort of link (to the referendum result), and that people on the ground feel somehow legitimised to say the things that they are (saying.) They feel emboldened that this result has meant that a majority of people support their racist and bigoted views, when in reality, that's not the case."

4. Cutaway

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Miqdaad Versi, Assistant Secretary General of Muslim Council of Britain:

"The reality is that this (referendum result) may have unleashed a Pandora's box of bigotry and Islamophobia that has emboldened those who wanted to say things in the past and haven't felt they've been able to. And as a result it is very important that civic society and politicians stand up to say 'no' to racism, 'no' to bigotry, and act rather than just stay silent on an issue that affects the whole of society."

6. Cutaway

When his friend Arek was killed in the street, Eric Hind had sickening evidence that the country he'd come to call home had changed.

But the Polish IT consultant had started to feel uneasy even before that, as Britain prepared to vote earlier this year on whether to remain in the European Union.

As debate heated up about the U.K.'s place in Europe, Hind's outsider status was made all too clear to him.

"When I first moved to the U.K. I felt like it was a dream come true," he said with quiet sadness. "It's the country where there are no differences, people just get on with each other, there are no questions asked about where you're from.

"But now I just have to watch my back. People are worried to use their own language in the streets. It's not what it is supposed to be like, or what it was like before."

Hind was among hundreds of thousands of Poles who seized the opportunity when the EU expanded into eastern Europe in 2004 to move to Britain, regarded as a welcoming country with a flexible labour market and relatively high wages.

Twelve years on, he'd settled in Harlow, near London, with a family and a good job.

After the June 23 vote, Hind says he received text messages that said things like, "What time is my bus back home, have I got my passport and good luck in Poland."

Free movement among member states is a key principle of the EU, and millions of Europeans have become used to studying, working or retiring abroad. Britain's vote to quit the bloc - after a "leave" campaign that urged people to "take back control" - is in part a renunciation of that borderless ideal.

The support for leaving the EU was swelled by citizens who felt the presence of so many people from other EU countries was making Britain less "British" and making it harder for Britons to find jobs, housing, and medical care.

One campaign poster featured a long line of migrants beside the slogan "breaking point."

Anti-racism groups say the vote also unleashed a wave of xenophobia that has brought insults, abuse and physical attacks.

Much of the recorded abuse has been aimed at eastern Europeans, who have come to Britain in the hundreds of thousands over the past decade - and particularly Poles, the largest group, who number a million in the U.K.

'Polish' has become derogatory," said Suresh Grover of the Monitoring Group, a charity that works with victims of hate crime.

"People who have racist views have become emboldened and they now keep on saying things that were seen to be unacceptable," he adds.

Official figures back up anecdotal evidence of a rise in hate crime since the referendum. According to the Home Office, police recorded 1,546 racially or religiously aggravated offences in England and Wales in the two weeks before referendum day, and 2,241 in the two weeks after it. The total for July was up 41 percent from the same month a year earlier. August's level was lower, but still higher than before for Brexit vote.

Incidents reported around the country include offensive graffiti daubed on a Polish community centre; cards saying "no more Polish vermin" left on cars; a Polish man punched and kicked in Yeovil, southwest England; another Polish man beaten by a gang of teenagers in the northern city of Leeds; and a 21-year-old Polish student stabbed in the neck with a broken bottle in the English Midlands town of Telford.

On Aug. 27, a Saturday night, Hind's friend Arkadiusz Jozwik, known as Arek, was involved in an altercation with youths outside a pizza parlour in Harlow, about 20 miles (32 kilometres) north of London. The 40-year-old was felled by a single punch, hit his head and died in hospital two days later.

Police said they were investigating the death as a hate crime, and arrested six teens aged 15 and 16. Five have been released for lack of evidence, while one remains on bail.

Poland's ambassador to Britain, Arkady Rzegocki, said he was "shocked and deeply concerned" by the hostility toward a community whose presence in Britain goes back to World War II, when Polish pilots fought in the Battle of Britain and a Polish government-in-exile was based in London.

"The hospitality of British society was very famous, and we appreciate it," he said.

Rzegocki said he is confident that common sense and British decency will prevail. He said the embassy has received many supportive letters from Britons condemning the attacks.

And he points out that Britain is a country with low unemployment whose economy relies on migrants, including armies of Polish plumbers, nannies and fruit-pickers.

"I am sure that most of British society is very welcoming to immigrants - especially to the Poles which had, and still have, a huge contribution to the British economy and to the British culture," he said.

He notes that for Europe, the 20th century was the era of "borders and protectionism - and it wasn't a good century in European history."

No one is arguing that the referendum introduced prejudice to Britain - earlier groups of immigrants, from Jews 100 years ago to West Indians after World War II, also experienced hostility. In the 2014 British Social Attitudes survey, about a third of people admitted to being a little or very prejudiced against other races.

Dorothy Spriggs, an 85-year-old who has lived in Harlow for almost 50 years says she can here people making derogatory comments about 'foreigners coming in' when she's on the bus.

Harlow is a post-World War II "new town" whose first residents included bombed-out Londoners. Over the years they've been joined by others - Chinese, Indians and more recently eastern Europeans, whose shops and delis sit alongside the town's fish-and-chip shops, Indian restaurants and kebab takeaways.

Spriggs stopped recently beside a makeshift memorial near the spot where Jozwik died: bunches of flowers, a candle and three large stuffed animals lined up neatly on benches.

"Try to understand the opinion of the other people," she urges.

"Listen to them, listen to them about their culture, things like that. You know, learn more about their way of life and our way of life and sort of intermix in that way," she adds.

That appeal may be too late to keep Hind in Harlow, or in Britain.

He's stopped going into town after 6 p.m. He's planning to leave the U.K., so his 2-year-old British-born daughter can grow up somewhere she will feel safe.

Hind worries he won't be allowed to remain in Britain even if he wants to.

The government has refused to guarantee that the estimated 3 million EU nationals in Britain can stay unless U.K. citizens elsewhere in the EU get the same right. Europe's borders are firming up again.

"It's just not nice to live in a country where you don't know where you stand ... if you don't know what will happen tomorrow, if someone will come to your door and say, 'OK, time for you to pack your bags and go home,'" Hind said.

"Everyone wants to feel safe and I don't think this is the case now in the U.K."

++CLIENTS PLEASE USE THIS EDIT WHICH CONTAINS AN ADDITIONAL SOUNDBITE BY DOROTHY SPRIGGS AND UPDATED STORYLINE++

Harlow - 20 October 2016

1. Bench with flowers, lantern and picture of Arek Jozwik, a Polish national who was killed on 27 August

2. Photo of Arek, pan

3. Wide of benches

4. Mid of bench area, soft toys where Polish national Arkadiusz Jozwik, known as Arek, was killed

5. Various of Polish national Eric Hind, living in the UK since 2004 and friend of Arek smoking a cigarette

6. Mid of Hind seated

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Eric Hind, Polish IT consultant, living in the UK since 2004, friend of Arek:

"When I first moved to the U.K. I felt like it was a dream come true, it's the country where there are no differences, people just get on with each other, there are no questions asked about where you're from, the dialect you are talking with, and stuff like that. But now I just have to watch my back. People are worried to use their own language in the streets. It's not what it is supposed to be like, or what it was like before."

8. Close-up Hind's hands

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Eric Hind, Polish IT consultant, living in the UK since 2004, friend of Arek:

"It's just not nice to live in a country where you don't know where you stand. So that's worrying and not very assuring to anyone. If you don't know what will happen tomorrow, if someone will knock to your door and say, 'OK, time for you to pack your bags and go home. I mean everyone wants the same, everyone wants to feel safe and I don't believe this is the case now in the U.K. You don't know what will happen and that's not good."

10. Mid of Harlow shopping centre street

11. Close of Union Flag flying from window

12. Various of shop exteriors selling goods from Europe

13. Various exteriors of Polish food shop

14. SOUNDBITE (English) Dorothy Spriggs, an 85-year-old who has lived in Harlow for almost 50 years:

"You've only got to hear people's conversation - if you're on the bus or somewhere like that, you know, over the course of the years, they say 'oh, its all these foreigners coming in'."

15. Cutaway of candle for Arek

16. SOUNDBITE (English) Dorothy Spriggs, an 85-year-old who has lived in Harlow for almost 50 years:

"Well, try to understand that's the opinion of the other people. Listen to them, listen about their culture, things like that. You know, learn more about their way of life and our way of life and sort of intermix in that way. I think so anyway."

17. Various set up shots of Suresh Grover, Director of the Monitoring Group, a charity that works with victims of hate crime.

18. SOUNDBITE (English) Suresh Grover, Director of the Monitoring Group:

"That underbelly has been let out loose. People who have racist views have become emboldened and they now keep saying things that were seen to be unacceptable. The 'n' word is back on the agenda, the 'p' word and Polish, the word Polish has become as derogatory as a 'Paki'. That's absolutely senseless, degrading, dehumanising in the 21st century Britain. A modern Britain which won Olympics on the basis of multicultural dynamic society."

19. Pan down of photo of race protest

20. Close of books

21. Various set up shots of Poland's ambassador to Britain, Arkady Rzegocki

22. SOUNDBITE (English) Arkady Rzegocki, Poland's Ambassador to Britain:

"Poles are present in Britain for decades or even centuries. Permanent presence of Poland is going (back) to the Second World War and after that, so I was a little bit shocked when it appeared that after the referendum we noticed more xenophobic incidents in different parts of Great Britain. Unfortunately after the referendum, we noticed some increase of incidents."

23. Cutaway hands

24. SOUNDBITE (English) Arkady Rzegocki, Poland's ambassador to Britain:

"I am sure that most of British society is very welcoming to immigrants, especially to the Poles which had, and still have, a huge contribution to the British economy and to the British culture, so I hope it will remain."

25. Wide of Polish embassy

26. Pan up to Polish and EU Flag

27. Close of Polish flag