Outspoken columnist Katie Hopkins has waded into the row over a Kent school’s decision to cancel a talk by a right-wing journalist famed for his inflammatory views.

It was revealed yesterday that Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury had been forced to withdraw the invite to controversial ex-pupil Milo Yiannopoulos over security fears.

The Department for Education’s counter extremism unit even contacted school bosses after it was alerted to the appearance by Mr Yiannopoulos, who has equated feminism with cancer and told women who felt threatened by online harassment that they should simply log off.

Hopkins – who like Milo Yiannopoulos has made her name for her inflammatory opinions – criticised the postponement, claiming pupils at the school have been treated like “wilting little snowflakes”.

“It's yet another indictment against the way kids in schools are allowed to think,” she told BBC Radio Kent.

“They've been brainwashed by lefty liberal teachers.

“Our schools are supposed to be educational, but they're awash with hysteria and one-sided thinking.

“We mock students and think they're wilting little snowflakes. They're not like that but haven't been given an opportunity to demonstrate their robust arguments.

“The Department of Education and NUT have stifled the sort of speech children should be able to hear so they can make up their own minds.”

Mr Yiannopoulos, a prominent member of the Alt-Right movement, says he is disgusted the school was forced to cancel the talk.

He said: “My old high school has been bullied into cancelling my talk on Tuesday by the ‘counter-extremism’ unit at the UK Department of Education.

“Who even knew the DoE had a counter-extremism unit? And that it wasn't set up to combat terrorism but rather to punish gays with the wrong opinions?

“Perhaps if I'd called the speech "MUSLIMS ARE AWESOME!" they'd have left us alone. Disgusted.”