Katie Hopkins protest: I applaud Brunel's students for organising mass walkout, but it's my job to make fun of the troll

I have to applaud the students of Brunel University London for organising a mass walkout on the loathsome media troll, Katie Hopkins. If you haven’t seen the clip, students filled out a lecture hall in which Hopkins was taking part in a debate on the welfare state. When she started speaking they stood up, turned their backs on her, and then exited the building en masse.

I applaud them, yet I’m a bit annoyed. I’ve been pursuing the troll queen for several months and had the same sort of stunt planned for the big finale. I’d organised a bunch of people dressed as trolls to follow Hopkins around like deranged One Direction fans. On several occasions I have found myself chasing her down London alleys as she has slipped out of radio stations’ back doors or bolted for cabs to get away from us. She appears to be proficient at life on the run. Presumably she is used to constant abuse so didn’t stop to notice that this particular band of eager trolls was holding huge signs saying “We Love Katie”.

The endgame was going to be an invite for Hopkins to attend an event that we had organised (in the belief that she would turn up for anything) in which we would control the audience. Sadly, the good students of Brunel have beaten me to it. So, well done to them.

Typically, Hopkins later took to the internet to rant about how universities were no longer places for students to “expand their horizons” but were now somewhere to “close their minds”.

As usual, she missed the point. Nobody was banning her. Students were just registering their displeasure at her existence. Hopkins asserts this is because they are trendy lefties objecting to her “shocking” right-wing views. This is bollocks. What people object to is the way she clamps on to the controversial subject of the day and takes the most offensive angle to feed an insatiable need for publicity.

None of this would really matter if her views weren’t financed by the press, widely disseminated, and then used as fuel for racists and bullies to legitimise their beliefs. Not only that but she is stupid. Who else could publicly sneer at children with geographical names such as Paris and Asia when they have a child called India?

What’s truly offensive, however, is that I wonder if even she believes most of the crap she spouts. I know people who’ve met her and attest to this. She is an empty vessel looking for money and fame that has realised that she can cash in on other people’s misery.

Recently an (unsuccessful) attempt was made to ban Germaine Greer from speaking at Cardiff University after some stuff she said about transgender women. I think what Greer said was offensive and dumb, but I support her right to say it. Nobody should be banned from speaking anywhere. If you disagree with something, confront it – don’t ban it. Hopkins is a controversialist, and therefore not worth arguing with. That’s why the Brunel students were bang on when they exercised their right to ignore her.