On Thursday 21 January 2016, Thierry de Coulon wrote:
> I would guess parts of kate are integrated in konqueror (as it
> seems to be the default editor).
>
> So removing kate seems at least very difficult. It is the default
> embeded editor (and there is no other editor proposed in the list
> in the ControlCenter. I can associate kedit with *.txt files, but
> kate remains the default embeded editor.
>
> This may explain why it's difficult (impossible?) to remove, but
> I've never seen it respawning.
>

Konqueror > Settings > Configure Konqueroro > File Associations 
put "txt" into "File name pattern"
expand "text" field; you'll see "plain"; click it

Now choose "Application Preference Order". You can move Kate down the 
lines to get rid of it.

Hope that helps
Gerhard