The Green Party leader has launched a blistering attack on Britain’s press regulation, branding the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) “toothless” and calling for a forced sell-off of most national newspapers by banning foreign ownership.

Zack Polanski is demanding an inquiry into the “culture and behaviour” of the press, arguing that the time has come for the media to be “sorted out.”

His intervention follows the death of Jason Arday, the former University of Cambridge professor who was found dead in London after facing intense media scrutiny over allegations of plagiarism. Polanski condemned what he described as “sustained and malicious media attacks,” arguing that Arday had faced particular hostility because he was black.

“We must now reflect on the impact of a trial by some of the media and online on someone under extreme pressure,” Polanski said.

The Prime Minister, responding to Arday’s death, urged a “moment of reflection” and warned people “not to rush to judgement.” Polanski criticised the comments, arguing that Andy Burnham had “utterly failed to recognise the moment to tackle the press.”

“I don’t think it would be ‘rushing to judgment’ to see that the press hounding people – especially people of colour – has been going on for a very long time,” he said.

The Green Party leader also took aim at press misinformation involving climate change. Replying to a story by the Daily Mail about the heatwaves in Britain, he said:

“Constant misinformation to protect their donors and fossil fuels is destroying lives and our planet. The Government must step up and stop being cowardly.”

In a letter to Burnham, Polanski has called on the government to launch an inquiry into how to “ensure a responsible press.”

The demands are being echoed within the Green Party. Members have called for the government to reopen the Leveson Inquiry to ensure its “full completion” and to place the British press under a “genuinely independent and recognised regulator with effective enforcement powers.”

A party motion has proposed that any new regulator should have powers to monitor what members describe as “harassment” arising from news coverage, as well as to “map and address” instances of racism and ableism.

Polanski’s comments inevitably drew a furious response from the right, with Free Speech Union founder Lord Toby Young telling the Telegraph that the Greens were attempting to exploit Arday’s death to advance what he described as an “anti-free speech agenda.”

“For the Green Party to pre-empt the inquest into [Mr Arday’s] death and weaponise it to pursue their anti-free speech agenda is both cynical and exploitative,” said Young.

“The British press does not need to be ‘sorted out’. Scrutinising powerful and influential figures and holding them to account, including Zack Polanksi, is precisely what it should be doing.”

This is the Toby Young who managed to secure a seat in the House of Lords from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, despite having been forced to resign from the Office for Students in 2018 after a string of misogynistic and homophobic tweets, including one where he referred to George Clooney as “queer as a coot” and another joking about visiting a bar full of “hardcore dykes.”

In other words, the man defending the press’s right to hold powerful people to account might reasonably be asked who holds the press, and those defending it, to account.

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More than 50 cross-party MPs and peers have written a letter to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, calling for the regulator to “fully investigate” the media’s coverage of Jason Arday leading up to his tragic death.

The former University of Cambridge professor, who was found dead last Friday, faced relentless press coverage over plagiarism accusations in the lead-up to his death.

The media has faced mounting criticism for writing 249 articles about Arday in the 22 days before his death, 188 of which were published after he resigned as a professor.

In a letter to IPSO Chief Executive Charlotte Dewar, coordinated by Labour MP Afzal Khan, MPs and peers raised concerns that the media’s reporting had been disproportionate.

The letter stated that reporting covered “aspects of his [Arday’s] life reaching far beyond what can be reasonably perceived as conducive to the public interest in relation to his alleged plagiarism”. 

The letter added that the story went beyond the allegations of plagiarism, “and became one that critiqued him because he was Black”. 

“It is not unreasonable to suggest that the colour of Prof Arday’s skin was a contributing factor in garnering the level of media scrutiny he faced following the allegations against him,” the letter also said. 

The letter notes that the media “continued to hound” Arday following his resignation, ignoring prior warnings that he faced a high risk of suicide due to being autistic and facing “repeated vitriol”.

It also points to how white professors at the University of Cambridge who have faced accusations have not received the same level of attention.

For example, the letter states that Simon Goldhill, a former professor who faced allegations of sexual assault which were upheld in April 2026, only resigned in June and didn’t face the same media scrutiny.

Peter Hutchinson, who received 10 accusations of sexual harassment, which were upheld, was reinstated to his post less than two years after being “permanently removed”. 

William O’Reilly, a white Cambridge professor who was found guilty of plagiarising his professor, kept his job, and only a small number of articles were written about his academic misconduct.

The letter calls on IPSO to “fully investigate the media response to the accusations against Prof Arday for the period leading up to his death, and decide whether the response was proportionate to the accusations against him”. 

The letter adds that IPSO owes it to Arday’s family and people nationwide who have been “devastated” by his death to say whether it believes the media coverage was “proportional, justified, and motivated by any reason other than the accusations of plagiarism levelled against him”.

Nathan Cofnas, a self-styled ‘race realist’ who promotes eugenicist ideas and was sacked from his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge over his views on race, led the accusations against Arday.

He claimed he ran Arday’s PhD through plagiarism detection software, and found that “many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source”.

Liverpool John Moore University, where Arday completed his PhD, said it had looked into the allegations and concluded he had not plagiarised.

Among the dozens of MPs and peers who signed the letter, were Labour MPs Kate Osborne, Nadia Whittome, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Clive Lewis, Richard Burgon, Tulip Siddiq, Kerry McCarthy, Paula Barker, and Tan Dhesi.

Jeremy Corbyn MP also signed the letter, as did Green MPs Carla Denyer, Sian Berry and Hannah Spencer, Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville-Roberts, and Lib Dem MP Manuella Perteghella. 

In a post on X, Clive Lewis shared the letter, and wrote: “Jason Arday is dead at 41 after weeks of brutal, relentless public scrutiny and years of abuse.”

The Labour MP for Norwich South added: “Whatever anyone thinks about the allegations against him, there now has to be a serious, independent examination of how this was handled, by institutions and by the media. Accountability cannot mean turning a human being into public sport.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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