Has Katie Hopkins lost her right to speak?

I must admit I was really surprised to see my fellow students standing up and leaving the auditorium at Brunel University, during Katie Hopkins’ speech in November.

The controversial Daily Mail columnist joined Brunel University’s 50^th anniversary celebrations, as part of a panel which was debating whether the Welfare State had a place in 2015.

Katie Hopkins on "This Morning"

The majority of the people in the audience, including myself, had booked a ticket for this event not so much to talk about the Welfare State, but mainly to see Katie Hopkins.

I won’t lie; Ms. Hopkins never fails to shock me whether she talks or writes and I wanted to see what she had to say next.

I had no idea that a group of students were planning to protest against Ms. Hopkins in that way, so in the beginning I was confused and asked myself “what’s going on?” However it only took a few seconds to realise what was happening and that the protest was aimed at Katie Hopkins.

She had only just introduced herself when the students stood up and turned their backs to her, before filing out of the auditorium. The tone of her voice however remained the same. She didn’t pause or hesitate, just continued talking. She didn’t seem surprised by the reaction either. I guess she had seen it coming. After all, she had outraged the world (once again!) with her latest provocative comments, when she compared the Syrian refugees to cockroaches.

One student tweeted: “The dragon Katie Hopkins is here”, while the president of the Brunel Union of Students, Ali Milani, said: “Today I am especially proud to be a part of Brunel. [Katie Hopkins] adds nothing to the intellectual or academic discourse and is an individual who publicly utters such overtly bigoted views”, he continued.

Well, I was not expecting Mr. Milani to say something different, especially as in Brunel University he is part of the Friends of Palestine and Islamic societies and on his twitter status he writes “Free Syria”. Also, he openly supports the Labour party, while Ms. Hopkins has made her right-wing views clear several times in the past.

To be honest though, I agree with what he said. I am wondering what more could Katie Hopkins offer in an academic debate than my local baker? She has had her University education but so have many others. Why does her opinion matter more, I do not understand.

She has taken part in I'm a Celebrity...Get Me out of Here! and has been on Celebrity Big Brother (basically trash reality TV). Why was she invited to a University debate? I cannot understand that either.

Ali Milani later added that “the inclusion of Ms. Hopkins has been met with wide spread outcry from the student body and the Students’ Union.” With that, I do not agree. What does he mean by student body? 30 students out of the 15,000 that Brunel has? I – and many others – did not take part in this protest and I do not feel that Mr. Milani has the right to generalise.

I personally did not walk out of the auditorium when Katie Hopkins was talking simply because I wanted to listen to her opinion. I deeply believe in democracy and in the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression and I wanted to listen to her explaining her comments or justifying them (pretty impossible!). I felt that if I had walked out, I would not have given her the chance to prove me wrong and there would not be a constructive dialogue, but only a monologue from my side.

I certainly do not agree with her comments about the refugees, neither about her comments regarding people with tattoos, overweight people or children names. I found her opinions stupid and absolutely illogical, based on no arguments. However, I do understand that she is allowed to have a different view on things. Like Voltaire has said “I don't agree with your opinion but I will fight for your right to say it.”

I think the problem with Katie Hopkins is that people take her too seriously. Her main purpose is to cause controversy, shock the world and grab attention, thus be in the limelight. But at the end of the day I feel that people (celebrities and TV personalities especially) get the amount of attention that we decide to give them. If people stopped caring so much about what she has to say, then I think Katie Hopkins would disappear from the news. And I doubt she would be missed.

I find her articles – whenever I happen to read one – rather entertaining. She makes me laugh. But I find it an absolute waste of time, to spend minutes of my day and ink from my pen to try and argue with her or to protest against her. Like she said on Daily Mail “people need to be more open minded” and realise that she has the right to speak like everyone else – even if she does not make any sense.

One thing is true though; Whether Katie Hopkins talks rubbish or not, she manages to have people talking about her. And I guess that’s her goal.