The Media Reform Coalition condemns the disproportionate level of media coverage about Jason Arday and his professional and public activities, in the weeks leading up to and including his death on 14 August. Regardless of the details of the case, the intensity of the coverage – illustrated vividly by Newscord analysis – extends well beyond any consideration of the public interest.

The MRC endorses calls for a renewed public inquiry into the culture and behaviour of the press, and encourages the public to support petitions to the Government organised by Hacked Off and the Good Law Project.

This case reinforces the importance of the findings of the Leveson Inquiry, published well over a decade ago, about the excessive and unaccountable abuses of Britain’s unregulated press. We call on the Government to finally implement the recommendations of the Leveson Report in full, and ensure that all newspapers are members of a genuinely independent self-regulator for the press.

Currently, most of the UK press – including every national newspaper – is unregulated. The Independent Press Standards Organisation, IPSO, is not effective and is not independent of either politicians or newspaper publishers. The UK press should be required to join a Leveson-compliant body such as Impress, rather than being left to write their own rules and mark their own homework. Only then will full accountability for such cases of excessive individual pursuit by the media be achievable.

Further, we condemn any use of reporting on Jason Arday, which was frequently framed in racist and ableist terms, to weaponise Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policies and undermine support for individuals facing discrimination based on their class, race, neurodiversity or other dimensions of identity. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policies have been hard-won and provide a vital tool through which workplace discrimination can be challenged.