Katie Hopkins

In 2015 Hopkins described African migrants crossing the Mediterranean as “cockroaches” and called for gunboats to stop migrants reaching Europe. This is a screengrab from the Sun's twitter account

Katie Hopkins is a notorious ex-tabloid columnist for The Sun, Mail Online and LBC Radio. She holds extremely hostile and inflammatory views against Muslims and migrants.

Hopkins first came to public attention in the British version of reality TV contestant The Apprentice.

She describes herself as a Christian conservative.

Activities

Joins RebelMedia

In January 2018 Hopkins joined the far right anti-Muslim online platform Rebel Media run by Canadian ex-tabloid editor Ezra Levant who also employs ex-English Defence Leader Tommy Robinson as a 'reporter'. The announcement came just months after Hopkins lost her job as a Daily Mail columnist and appeared as a speaker at a weekend fundraiser held by leading US counterjihad David Horowitz in November 2017.

A PR machine for extremists like Defend Europe

In July 2017 Hopkins sparked widespread outrage for spending a week in Sicily with Defend Europe, a far-right network of young anti-immigrant and anti-Islam activists that aims to send refugees “back to Africa by blocking their boats. Her trip, ostensibly in her role as a columnist for Mail Online, was vehemently criticised by anti-racist campaigners and charities such as Hope not Hate and Save the Children, as well as the Board of Deputies of British Jews. It called for Hopkins to apologise for posting on Twitter her photo with Holocaust denier Peter Sweden who is linked to the Defence Europe campaign.

Condemnation by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

In her Sun column in 2015 Hopkins infamously described African migrants crossing the Mediterranean as “cockroaches” and called for gunboats to stop migrants reaching Europe.

"No, I don’t care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don’t care."

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, strongly condemned Hopkin's language likening it that used by Rwanda’s Kangura newspaper and Radio Mille Collines during the run-up to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.