Move comes after CPS drop case against her following Society of Black Lawyers referral
Controversial columnist Katie Hopkins took to Twitter this week to tell her fans about her newest vocation — setting up “The Society for White Lawyers”.
Yes, really:
I am setting up The Society for White Lawyers. Do let me know if you are available to join: katie@katiehopkins.co.uk https://t.co/0E4jTYHYvd
— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) November 3, 2015
The tweet was made in the wake of news that University of Exeter graduate Hopkins, 40, would not be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred, a case referred to the police by the Society of Black Lawyers chairman, Peter Herbert.
In April 2015, the Celebrity Big Brother runner-up described migrants as “cockroaches” and “feral humans” that were “spreading like the norovirus” in her The Sun column.
Three days after the comments were made, Herbert reported the acid-tongued columnist to the Metropolitan Police.
The ex-Apprentice star has angered many with her hostility towards migrants. A petition has been set up on Change.org to have her replaced by 50,000 Syrian refugees, and has topped 61,000 signatures.
Herbert, who fights for the “elimination of racial discrimination within the legal profession”, was particularly shocked by the comments, describing them as “some of the most offensive, xenophobic and racist” words he’d seen in a British newspaper.
Though the matter was considered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Detective Inspector Howard Hold has now written to Hopkins to confirm she will not be charged. And she has taken to Twitter to voice her response.
Hopkins — who famously told Charlotte Proudman to “get over [her]self” for publicising sexist messages she’d received on LinkedIn — showed no remorse about her comments, telling her her 603,000 followers:
I will not and will never apologise for standing up for what I believe in.
Unleashing her venom on Herbert, Hopkins — who has no known connections to the legal profession — encouraged others to join her newly coined white-lawyer-only society.
Herbert previously caused a stir by reporting football referee Mark Clattenburg to the police for using a racist term. He is yet to take to social media to voice his response to Hopkins.
Despite being colloquially referred to as the most hated woman in Britain, Daily Mail commenters seem to be getting behind Hopkins.
‘Moneypenny’ from London commented:
The complaint came from a group called the Society of Black Lawyers…..and SHE’S the one being racist….give me strength.
While ‘me’ from Ashford wrote:
…‘reported by the Society of Black Lawyers’ — is there a ‘Society of White Lawyers’ — if not, why not?
The Society of Black Solicitors was set up to “promote equality and diversity” in the legal profession, which continues to be dominated by white men at partner-level.
The Society for White Lawyers probably doesn’t exist for the same reason that the Society for Male Lawyers doesn’t exist, and the Society for Middle-Class Lawyers doesn’t exist — because it doesn’t need to exist. Pro-Hopkins commenters, and indeed Hopkins herself, seem to have missed this point.