A councillor has denied any involvement in an incident during which Labour leader Ed Miliband was allegedly shoved by protesters at an event in London.

Stephen Canning, Essex County Councillor for Bocking and district councillor for Bocking Blackwater, was named in an article in the Sunday Mirror.

Mr Canning said: "I neither knew of the protest or was in anyway involved in the planning or preparation of it. I was not at the protest.

"Any insinuation to the contrary is a lie."

Mr Miliband was ambushed by protesters as he attended an election event in Rotherhithe, South East London, on Thursday afternoon.

A group of six men and women wearing masks featuring the face of the former Scottish Nationalist Party leader Alex Salmond are said to have surrounded Mr Miliband as he tried to get into his car.

One Labour activist claimed in the article that Mr Miliband had been punched in the chest.

Speaking to the Times, another witness said the incident was a “juvenile stunt”.

Local voter Neil McEwan said: “There were a bunch of young Tories with Alex Salmond masks on and a puppet of Ed Miliband.

“Ed had a couple of people with him and they had to push through the demonstrators to get to his car.

“Somebody suggested he had been punched but I didn’t see it.”

Mr McEwan said fathers’ rights protesters were also present and Labour supporters on the scene told him they thought it was a stunt set up by a national newspaper.

He said: “Everybody was shouting. It was a bit pathetic, in my view, that the Tories are pulling that kind of stunt.

“This was a bunch of young Tories trying to make some political capital, it was just stupid.”

A spokesman for the Conservative Party admitted activists were present but said: "It is categorically untrue that any Conservative activist or employee was involved in any way with the protest which pushed and jostled Ed Miliband.”