Katie Hopkins To Leave LBC Radio After 'Final Solution' Tweet

Off she goes.
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Presenter Katie Hopkins is to leave LBC radio, it was announced on Friday morning.

A spokesperson confirmed: “LBC and Katie Hopkins have agreed that Katie will leave LBC effective immediately.”

She wrote: “22 dead – number rising. Schofield. Don’t you even dare. Do not be part of the problem. We need a final solution. #Machester.”

Katie Hopkins will leave LBC radio ‘immediately’
Katie Hopkins will leave LBC radio ‘immediately’
PA

Hopkins hastily deleted the tweet, changing “final” to “true” and corrected the spelling of Manchester – but not before it had been noticed and screen-grabbed by several sources.

The original comment has been interpreted by some to refer to the Wansee Conference held in January 1942, attended by high-level Nazi party and German governmental officials where the decision was taken for a ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Problem’. What followed were mass killings at death camps in Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibor.

@KTHopkins How come you changed this from "final solution" to "true solution"? Come on, stand by those nazi words, nazi. pic.twitter.com/qzfpGqZeP0

— Wreckx-n-Effexor (@JohnSeaborn) May 23, 2017

@JohnSeaborn I stand by my tweet. I find the typo disrespectful to the survivors in Manchester

— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) May 23, 2017

Hopkins responded to queries about the revision, claiming: “I stand by my tweet. I find the typo disrespectful to the survivors of Manchester.”

But commentators were quick to brand the mother-of-three a “Nazi” and accused her of calling for a mass genocide.

Political activist Owen Jones urged a boycott of LBC until Hopkins was removed from air. Following the announcement on Friday, Jones declared: “We stood against hatred, and, this time, we won.”

We stood against hatred, and, this time, we won. ✊💪 https://t.co/KQUpDhUCCz

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) May 26, 2017

And don't anyone try and pretend that this is an attack on free speech. Hopkins can keep freely spouting her hatred, and tragically will.

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) May 26, 2017

Am very reliably told there were massive cheers + applause in @LBC newsroom when staff received email about Hopkins https://t.co/F1D8fAtWZ3

— Amol Rajan (@amolrajanBBC) May 26, 2017

BBC News presenter Amol Rajan wrote: “Am very reliably told there were massive cheers and applause in the LBC newsroom when staff received the email about Hopkins.”

Jones had written earlier in the week: “LBC depends on guests to function. Until they sack Katie Hopkins we should all boycott all interview requests. Enough is enough. A national radio station is employing someone who calls for genocide. Don’t say ‘just ignore her, she’ll go away’, because she won’t.”

Writer George Monbiot tweeted his support: “I agree. @LBC, please don’t ring me until she’s gone.”

She wanted a "solution" LBC found one

— Giles Dilnot (@reporterboy) May 26, 2017

Hopkins was also reported to the police for the comment. A spokesman for the Met Police confirmed a complaint had been received and that the allegation was being reviewed and assessed by specialist officers.

Last month Hopkins was reported to the police after remarks she made in the wake of the arrest of a man in Whitehall on suspicion of plotting a terror attack. She was accused of a hate crime after tweeting: “Explosion in France, shooting at a German hospital, knife attack in London. And Ramadan has not yet begun. Without food these sods get nasty.”

It’s believed she was referring to an explosion at a McDonald’s restaurant in the south of France and a shooting at a hospital in Berlin, also on Thursday. Neither incident was believed to have been linked to terror. The Met confirmed the allegations were being investigated.

Writer and activist Owen Jones had called for a boycott of LBC until Hopkins was removed from the air
Writer and activist Owen Jones had called for a boycott of LBC until Hopkins was removed from the air
PA Wire/PA Images

In March Hopkins lost a Twitter libel case against food blogger Jack Monroe. Monroe won £24,000 in damages, while Hopkins was ordered to pay both her own and Monroe’s legal bills, a figure some experts say could exceed £300,000. The action was over a tweet sent by Hopkins in 2015 which implied Monroe had either vandalised a war memorial or had condoned the act.

In 2015 she escaped charges over allegations she had incited racial hatred for calling migrants “cockroaches.” She was questioned by police in connection with the controversial column, published in The Sun on April 17, that came in the wake of a capsizing in which 400 migrants are believed to have drowned.

The piece, entitled ‘Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants’, likened people fleeing war-torn nations to “cockroaches” and called for them to be turned away with military force.

Jordanian Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged authorities in the UK to use the law to clamp down on “vicious verbal assault on migrants and asylum seekers in the UK tabloid press”, adding: “The Nazi media described people their masters wanted to eliminate as rats and cockroaches. This type of language is clearly inflammatory and unacceptable, especially in a national newspaper.”

Hopkins was reported to the Met three days after the article was published by Society of Black Lawyers chairman Peter Herbert, who complained her words were “offensive” and “xenophobic.”

The Special Enquiry Team of the Homicide and Major Crime Command investigated, but six months later Hopkins revealed she had been given the all clear. She told MailOnline: “I will not and will never apologise for standing up for what I believe in.

“I find it surprising that at a time when police are so undermanned they can’t afford to turn up to burglaries or find cars after a crash, they think a woman with an opinion is their highest priority.

“I am grateful Scotland Yard enjoys my writing but I would encourage them to focus their energies on those who present a real threat to this country which I love.”

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