{"id":741267,"date":"2026-08-17T23:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/741267\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T23:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:12:10","slug":"tens-of-thousands-pay-tribute-to-jason-arday-at-trafalgar-square-vigil-jason-arday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/741267\/","title":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands pay tribute to Jason Arday at Trafalgar Square vigil | Jason Arday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London to remember and pay tribute to Jason Arday<\/a>, the former Cambridge professor who died on Friday.<\/p>\n

Stand Up to Racism, which organised the vigil, estimated that 30,000 mourners had gathered in the square to listen to emotional speeches from MPs, friends and campaigners on Arday\u2019s life and legacy and join in a minute\u2019s silence. Many were dressed in black and held flowers, which they were asked to leave beneath Nelson\u2019s column. People also carried placards reading \u201crest in power\u201d.<\/p>\n

Arday, 41, was pronounced dead<\/a> after emergency services were called to his home in south London on Friday. He had just resigned from his role as professor of sociology of education at Cambridge, after widespread scrutiny over accusations of plagiarism<\/a>, which he rejected, and inconsistencies in statements about his career and achievements<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Opening the event, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the local MP for Arday\u2019s family in Clapham and Brixton Hill, said: \u201cI\u2019m going to look around you and look at how many people have come tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat tells you what Jason meant. He held doors open behind him. He kept them open and thousands of us walked through. That is why this place is full tonight. And I know that all of you are grieving. I know there are many people that aren\u2019t even here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tributes left after a vigil, organised by the campaign group Stand Up to Racism. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\n

Ribeiro-Addy asked that people respect the privacy of Arday\u2019s family, who \u201clost their son, their brother. Not a professor, not a headline, not a symbol.\u201d She asked that they be given \u201ctime, space and quiet\u201d to grieve.<\/p>\n

She concluded the vigil by reading out a statement from Arday\u2019s family. They said: \u201cThe public cruelty Jason was subjected to was too much for any man to bear. The outpouring of love, support, and grief since his death means so much to us. Although it is bittersweet now, kindness is needed in life, not just in death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many speeches focused on the role of the media in Arday\u2019s death. Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said there had been 249 articles about him within three weeks. \u201cHe must have felt that if he resigned, the attacks on him would stop. But in fact, they got even worse,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a vicious campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd listened to speeches from friends, MPs and mentors of Arday, who was remembered as a \u2018wonderful man\u2019. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\n

The British singer Beverley Knight performed her song Keep This Fire Burning and Jermain Jackman, who won The Voice in 2014, performed a cover of Coldplay\u2019s Fix You, requested by Arday\u2019s family. The MPs Zack Polanski and Jeremy Corbyn were also in attendance.<\/p>\n

Simon Woolley, who was a mentor to Arday at Cambridge, said that when he had seen Arday shortly before his death, \u201cwe knew Jason was suffering\u201d and feeling \u201chounded\u201d, and he had hugged him. \u201cWe told him he was loved,\u201d Woolley said.<\/p>\n

Remembering Arday as a \u201cwonderful man [who] never stole a bag of crisps\u201d, he urged that there \u201cbe some reckoning\u201d after Arday\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Windrush campaigner Patrick Vernon said the evening was the time to \u201cpay our respects and to stand in solidarity with his grieving family\u201d. \u201cLet\u2019s remember his life, his scholarship, his achievements, his determination and his humanity and the people that he inspired,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Diane Abbott, speaking at the event. Photograph: Victoria Jones\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

But he added that it would be important to reflect on the role of \u201cracism, institutional responsibility, accountability and the treatment of black families and black men\u201d in Arday\u2019s death, as well as why the \u201cduty of care\u201d to an autistic man known to be vulnerable had failed, potentially through a public inquiry.<\/p>\n

Samira Ali, an organiser at Stand Up to Racism, read out a statement from a close friend and colleague of Arday, which said: \u201cProf Jason, the words kind, beautiful and gentle seem to orbit so many dedications to him and they are not wrong. But in truth, words will never quite capture the type of person Prof Jason was or what he meant to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement referenced Arday\u2019s work setting up mentoring schemes and mental health support for students and academics of colour. It said: \u201cHe worked tirelessly to inspire all students from marginalised backgrounds to believe that academia could also belong to them. He did not inspire one or two people to do a PhD; there are dozens of us over generations who have dreamed and are now doctors and soon-to-be professors because of him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands of people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London to remember and pay tribute to Jason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-741267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}