Following confidential discussions Dorset Eye has identified some of the key reasons why some venues have cancelled hate speaker Katie Hopkins.
Following news of Katie Hopkins’ ‘show’ at Weymouth Pavilion not going ahead in May, there has been considerable online support and dissent.
It is unclear whether the ‘show’ was cancelled by Hopkins or by the Pavilion. However, what is clear is that her proposed ‘shows’ at Plymouth, Bedford, Bournemouth and Southampton have been cancelled following considerable local opposition from decent people.
However, it is important to base any views upon facts so, for those who aren’t aware of Hopkins’ horrific history of discriminatory and incendiary language, here are some truly shocking examples. In summary, she has attacked Muslims, likened migrants to cockroaches, called for a ‘final solution’, attacked people – including children – who are disabled, attacked a victim of child sexual exploitation and more.
Although the far right may not see the following as an issue, the majority of the public, being decent, absolutely do.
Katie Hopkins – Some Examples of Racist and Offensive Hate Speech
June 2014 – Hopkins offended the entire Islamic community when she tweeted:
“Ramadan typically brings a spike in violence in Middle East. I get grumpy when I don’t eat – but I don’t blow things up. Religion of peace? If we take 5:2 as a basic idea, what is the ratio for Ramadan? 18:6?” Among posting other insults, Hopkins shared a picture of a cake under the caption: “Are you celebrating Ramadan? Here is a picture of a juicy cake.”
2015 – Hopkins worked as a columnist in The Sun, penning diatribes against immigrants and Muslims. In April 2015, she compared migrants making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to safety to “cockroaches”. She wrote: “Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches. They might look a bit ‘Bob Geldof’s Ethiopia circa 1984’, but they are built to survive a nuclear bomb.”
The use of the term ‘cockroaches’ to describe people was employed by the Nazis (to describe Jews). More recently, in 1992, an official in Rwanda’s ruling Hutu party, Leon Mugesera, made an incendiary speech, describing the Tutsi minority as ‘cockroaches’ (a term that was then frequently repeated by the RTLM radio station). Over 800,000 people died in the subsequent genocide. Mugesera was later jailed for life.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, heavily criticised The Sun for printing the column. He noted that Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), says: ‘Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law’ and added: “The Sun’s editors took an editorial decision to publish this article, and – if it is found in breach of the law – should be held responsible along with the author.”
2015-2017 – Following anti-austerity protests, Hopkins falsely alleged that food writer and activist Jack Monroe had vandalised a war memorial which led to Monroe receiving death threats. After refusing to apologise, Hopkins lost a subsequent libel/defamation case and was ordered to pay £24,000 in damages and costs estimated to be around £300,000. She subsequently had to sell her Exeter home and enter into an IVA.
2015-19 – Hopkins has repeatedly made appalling comments about disabled people, including children. In 2015, she attacked the parents of Jaxon Buell, born with Microhydranencephaly, an incurable malformation of the brain. Hopkins wrote: “Plain wrong. If your baby has half a head, you don’t have it.” Also in 2015, she called a 9-year-old girl with autism a “twat” and compared her to a pig. Also in 2015, she labelled Ed Miliband “clearly on the (autistic) spectrum” A spokesman for the National Autistic Society (NAS) said: “This is a ridiculous and offensive thing to say. Of course people with autism can and do achieve great things and ‘on the spectrum’ should not be used as a crude insult.” In 2019, she made appalling comments about wheelchair users at an airport. Disability rights groups have regularly condemned Hopkins’ comments and she was urged in 2015 to “stop bullying people with disabilities.” Her show would therefore have been highly incongruous with the Pavilion’s expressed intention to be inclusive of those with disabilities.
December 2015 – After some members of the Mahmood family (who are Muslim) were denied entry to the US (they were going on holiday to Disneyland), Hopkins wrote in her Daily Mail column that they were extremists with links to Al-Qaeda. This was utterly untrue and The Mail later paid £150,000 in libel damages to the family plus legal costs.
April 2016 – After the bombings in Brussels airport and Metro, Hopkins blamed Angela Merkel for letting immigrants into the country and called Brussels ‘Jihadi Central’.
August 2016 – After the death by drowning of 5 migrants at Camber Sands, Hopkins wrote on Twitter: “5 dead at Camber Sands were” and then invited her followers to cast votes on four options: “Aspiring footballers, mentally ill, fans of Anders Brevik or big fans of inflatables”. The Tweet was reported to Sussex Police who wrote “incredibly insensitive, although not criminal. We suggest reporting her to Twitter. We have already.”
September 2016 – A year to the day since three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body was discovered washed up on a Turkish beach, Hopkins Tweeted a picture of his father alongside the comment “Lectured on caring for migrants by a man who left his wife and child at the bottom of the Med? No thank you Mr Kurdi.”
March 2017 – Hopkins ignited a particularly fierce backlash after claiming convicted paedophile and footballer Adam Johnson was not a paedophile and did not deserve a prison sentence for sexual activity with a 15-year-old schoolgirl. The disgraced footballer pleaded guilty to counts of grooming and sexual activity with a child, and was found guilty at trial of one more serious count of sexual activity with a child. On Twitter, Hopkins wrote: “A child? YOU ARE KIDDING ME? Looking to impress her mates by snagging a footballer. Hey presto. From sl*g to wag.”
A subsequent petition to have her removed from Twitter was signed by 75,000 people. It said: “Unbelievably, Katie Hopkins has been given a platform to insult, abuse and cause outrage for far too long. Attacking victims of Child Sex Exploitation is possibly the most disgusting act that any human can do. Freedom of speech is something I believe in. Freedom of hate speech isn’t.”
May 2017 – Hopkins sparked more outrage after posting another racist tweet. Next to a poster of the new Netflix series Dear White People, she wrote: “Dear black people. If your lives matter why do you stab and shoot each other so much.” She deleted the message after enormous backlash.
May 2017 – Radio station LBC fired Hopkins following a controversial Tweet concerning the Manchester attacks that called for “a final solution”. The message, which was quickly deleted from social media, echoed the Nazi term for the Holocaust and was widely condemned and reported to the Metropolitan Police.
August 2017 – Hopkins joined up with Far Right Holocaust-denier and antisemite Peter Imanuelsen (aka ‘Peter Sweden’) in Sicily to promote ‘Defend Europe’ – an extreme right wing group who hamper humanitarian search and rescue missions.
February 2018 – Hopkins made an inflammatory film in South Africa and had her passport confiscated and was prevented from leaving South Africa after being accused by the country’s authorities of ‘spreading racial hatred’.
2019 – Referring to Hopkins’ disgusting 2013 tweet in which she ‘fat-shamed’ Little Mix singer Jesy, in the 2019 documentary Odd One Out, Jesy told how Hopkins’ tweet about her weight led to a “pinnacle point” where she spiralled into depression and tried to end her life.
June 2020 – Hopkins was permanently banned from Twitter after a disgusting tirade aimed at black footballer Marcus Rashford. A spokesperson for Twitter said: “Keeping Twitter safe is a top priority for us – abuse and hateful conduct have no place on our service and we will continue to take action when our rules are broken. In this case, the account has been permanently suspended for violations of our Hateful Conduct policy.”
Twitter CEO Imran Ahmed said : “We are pleased that preliminary action appears to have been taken by Twitter against the identity-based hate actor, Katie Hopkins. We believe social media can empower the world to be even better, but handing megaphones to hate actors is irresponsible and dangerous.”
She has continued to viciously attack prominent people of colour including Marcus Rashford, Stormzy and Meghan Markle with racist slurs.
In 2022, Hopkins was performing in a few theatres in a double act with ex-BBC Radio presenter and self-styled ‘Voice of Reason’ on his Youtube channel Alex Belfield. They were billed as ‘The Two Gobshites”. In August, Belfield was convicted of the most appalling stalking and harassment of four people including BBC presenter Jeremy Vine and has just been sentenced to five and a half years in prison (plus had a restraining order placed upon him). Nice company!
Two final points. If the ‘show’ had gone ahead in Weymouth, what would that have said to our ethnic minority population, our migrant population (which includes recently-arrived Ukrainians), the disabled people of Weymouth and to all decent people? How would this have sat with the Pavilion’s stated intention to be inclusive of those with disabilities and a family-friendly venue?
And for those shouting ‘Freeze Peach’, free speech does not include hate speech! Free speech comes with responsibilities, including not providing a platform for those who use their free speech to incite racial hatred and to attack and trample on the rights of others.
If the show was cancelled by Hopkins, then Weymouth has been saved from exposure to hate. If it was cancelled by the Pavilion…, we applaud them for their decision.
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