On 14 August, 41-year-old academic Jason Arday was found dead in Battersea, London. His death followed a relentless media blitz which occurred despite Arday being unknown to the wider public. This expanded awareness of Arday has now led to a vigil in which thousands of Britons travelled to Trafalgar Square to mourn his passing:

So powerful to be in Trafalgar Square at the vigil.

Rest in Power, Professor Jason Arday. pic.twitter.com/Z2PtLsf1rT

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) August 17, 2026

There was one person who wasn’t mourning, however, and that was Nathan Cofnas – the self-described “race realist” who launched the attack on Arday.

Vigil

Arranged at short notice, the vigil for Arday took place on 17 August. Organisers asked attendees to wear black and to bring flowers. Around 2,000 people showed up, including Labour MP Diane Abbott and filmmaker Misan Harriman.

Harriman told attendees:

The legacy media crossed every line in the treatment of Jason.

Imagine being so lost in the business of cruelty that you relish hurting another human for sport, with your own poison pen.

Abbott, meanwhile, said that the campaign was led by:

people who didn’t believe a black man should be a Cambridge professor.

He must have felt that if he resigned, the attacks on him would stop. But in fact, they got even worse.

This was a campaign against all of us

“Race realist” Nathan Cofnas is no doubt one of the people who Abbott had in mind.

Nathan Cofnas

As we reported on 16 August:

Cofnas was also an academic at Cambridge, but his criticism of equality, diversity, and inclusion programmes led to his departure. Cofnas’s objections to these programmes went way beyond the usual criticisms of fairness or legality too; he actually argued that in a true meritocracy, Black people “would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”.

Cofnas has described himself as a “race realist“. In other words, he’s someone who uses pseudoscience to argue that People of Colour are intellectually inferior to white people. So he has Nazi-style beliefs, in other words. And the media should have ensured this was a heavy focus in any reporting.

The following is how Nathan Cofnas responded to the Trafalgar Square vigil:

There is an anti-Cofnas hate rally in Trafalgar Square with ~15,000 attendees. If I were in London there is a real possibility that I would be murdered.

1000s of academics & journalists knew the truth about Jason Arday for more than a year. Now you know why no one said anything.

The tone of his post suggests that Cofnas is purposefully trying to rile people up. Of course, this isn’t any better than if he actually believed what he was saying. A man is dead. And the individual who launched the hate campaign is at best mocking the mourners and at worse indulging in grandiose fantasies.

Unbelievable… the man who drove Jason Arday to his death is suggesting his life is in danger because of a peaceful vigil in Jason’s memory. Straight out of the Zionist/far-right playbook – they similarly describe pro-Palestine marches as hate rallies and purport to be victims https://t.co/mjsk329eYF

— Amara Sophia Elahi (@AmaraSophia) August 17, 2026

Gone

The Trafalgar Square gathering followed an earlier vigil at Cambridge attended by 200 people, including Arday’s former students. There is also a statement from Arday’s family, which reads:

Jason was subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse for more than three years since he accepted the role of professor at Cambridge University by those who would leave no stone unturned in their quest to undermine him.

The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.

We are in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son.

We won’t comment further at this point beyond asking the press to leave us alone now, and to stop the campaign of harassment which has been waged against Jason and his family for too long.

They’re now triggered by a GoFundMe set up to support the family of Professor Jason Arday with funeral costs.

So far, £75,227 has been donated.https://t.co/5SIZrTH2qN

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) August 16, 2026

Featured image via PA Media / Al Jazeera / Christian Sinibaldi

By Willem Moore

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