A mob of masked protestors stormed an event featuring an Israeli speaker at King’s College London (KCL), reportedly throwing punches and letting off smoke bombs.

Israeli Yaron Brook, the chairman of the board of the right-wing Ayn Rand Institute, was speaking at a KCL Libertarian Society event with Carl Benjamin, a controversial YouTube personality known as Sargon of Akkad.

Footage taken shows a group of masked protestors storming the lecture theatre before they and students clash on stage. KCL confirmed police officers attended.

One of the protesters can be seen carrying an Antifa flag – from the self-proclaimed “left-wing anti-fascist” group – while another was struck in the face.

One witness told the Daily Mail: "Ten to 15 people dressed all in black, with black hoods and black face masks, leapt over the barriers and instantly engaged in a fight with two or three security guards.

"They tried to stop them but they just started punching them in the face.”

The Ayn Rand Institute, named for the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, advocates objectivism, a philosophical system centred on “rational self-interest” and laissez-faire capitalism.

Mr Benjamin has been criticised for his “anti-progressive” politics, and his online targeting of feminists and Black Lives Matter activists.

He was at the centre of a 2016 media storm after he was accused of instigating a misogynistic trolling campaign against Labour MP Jess Phillips.