Many people have wondered how best to deal with Katie Hopkins and her often offensive views that inevitably receive so much attention.

On Monday, students at Brunel University demonstrated one way of shutting her down when they filled a theatre for a debate featuring Hopkins and then turned their backs to her as soon as she began speaking.

The controversial columnist has ramped up her provocative statements in recent months. Her most infamous column dehumanised refugees by comparing them to cockroaches and led for calls for her sacking in the wake of the refugee crisis.

She repeated her calls for boats carrying refugees to Europe to be sent back as she appeared at the Ukip conference in September.

Hopkins joined a panel at the university for the debate, ’Does the Welfare State have a place in 2015?’ as part of the University’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Students in the audience stood up and turned their back to her as she began to speak and then walked out of the auditorium.

Joe Nicell, Brunel SU's communications manager, told The Independent about 50 people walked out. He said objections to her speaking were first raised by students in October and the protest had been planned for some time. "It was mainly that we didn't feel that she fitted the debate and she wasn’t the right person to be speaking," he said.

Ali Milani, the President of Brunel’s student union, condemned Hopkins as the “physical manifestation of online trolls” and accused her of having no “valuable intellectual insight” to add to the debate.

In a piece addressing the protest, he said: “The inclusion of Ms Hopkins has been met with widespread outcry from the student body and the Students’ Union.

Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Show all 16 1 /16 Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on 'plus size' 'To call yourself 'plus-size' is just a euphemism for being fat. Life is much easier when you're thinner. Big is not beautiful, of course a job comes down to how you look.' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on naming children ‘I think you can tell a great deal from a name. For me, there are certain names that I hear and I think ‘Urgh’. For me, a name is a shortcut of finding out what class that child comes from and makes me ask, ‘Do I want my children to play with them?’ There’s a whole set of things that go with children like that and that’s why I don’t like those sorts of children. ‘Hi, this is my daughter Charmaine’. I hear: ‘Hi, I am thick and ignorant.’’ Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on gender equality 'Women don't want equal treatment, they couldn't handle it if they got it. It's a tough world out there. What a lot of women are actually looking for is special treatment. What women need to realise is that they have to toughen up.' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on immigration 'I've always said if you go into a school playground and shout Mohammad, you'll probably get 100 children running towards you!" Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins to Benefits Street's White Dee 'Do you not feel like the patron saint of druggies and dropouts?' Channel 5 Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on tattoos 'Are tattoos just a badge for the stupid? For me, and for lots of people like me, when you see tatoos you think of someone who is just looking for attention, who hasn't managed to find a way in their life through conventional means and who is just shouting 'I want attention! I want to be looked at!' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on addiction ‘I don’t believe what Russell Brand says about addiction. I just don’t buy it. Gazza likes drinking, let him crack on. He is enjoying himself.’ Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on The X Factor 'The X Factor 2013 has ended in a painful showdown between a fat mum in a jumpsuit (Sam Bailey) and a small boy in whatever his mum laid out for him on his bed (Nicholas McDonald)' ITV Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on the Egyptian uprising 'The difference between most mothers and me is that I didn’t sit around drinking coffee at baby group for 12 months after the birth of my baby. No, in three weeks I was back in my suit, back at my desk earning profit for my business and I don’t see why other women shouldn’t do the same.' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on maternity leave 'Egyptian uprising continues to look like Bonfire Night. Protest fireworks. Right up there with angry cup cakes.' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on 'gingerism' 'Ginger babies. Like a baby. Just so much harder to love. A ginger person with tattoos called Jayden? The triumvirate of horror!' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on affairs 'I lied to get someone else's husband because I wanted him. I give myself 8 out of 10 for ruthlessness for that one.' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on the elderly ‘Personally I hate mobility scooters. I find their owners intolerable. Ran past a mobility scooter going up hill. Made me giggle. I need to grow up and stop being an arse.’ Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins after the Glasgow helicopter crash 'Life expectancy in Scotland is 59.5. Goodness me. That lot will do anything to avoid working until retirement.' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on Ramadan 'Channel 4 broadcasts Islamic calls to prayer for Ramadan. A 30 day reminder that minority rules in the UK. Any more PC, it'd be a bloody laptop.' Katie Hopkins' most offensive moments Katie Hopkins on self-harming 'I am advised by the Twitterati to 'cut myself'. I grazed myself on my house gate yesterday. Will that suffice?'

“It is important to note that the conversation at no point has been about banning Ms Hopkins from speaking on campus, or denying her right to speak. It is instead about saying it is distasteful and incongruous for our University, as part of a 50th celebration event, to provide a platform to someone who adds nothing to the intellectual or academic discourse; and an individual who publicly utters such overtly bigoted views.”