Leading the Windrush Day Of Action Windrush Road Block. Whitehall and Westminster Bridge.

                             Me in action on Windrush Day of Action.  See the whole thing here. 

Windrush Day Of Action: BBC News Coverage

Great coverage by BBC on our #WindrushDayOfAction and you can watch here. 

My Thoughts on Windrush Day. #WindrushDayOfAction

Watch my live video commentary on all things #WindrushDay #WindrushDayOfAction

Arise Sir Simon Woolley

I cannot express how delighted I am that my dear brother, and someone who I had the honour of recruiting into the struggle, Obv Simon Woolley has distinguished himself by remaining true to his principles and creating one of the most well-known and now best known institutions in our community OBV

To see him and his family recognised and to see his family provided with such a wonderful legacy brings joy to my heart. It is rare that we see real people being awarded these honours on this occasion I couldn't agree more with the decision of the Queen to recognise someone I've worked with, and come to admire over 30 years.

Well done Sir Simon Wooley I am inordinately proud of your achievements. Much love and respect....and for this you get a right royal. Lee Jasper, Kingly five star #BlackSalute ♥🖤💚
Cue Jamaican Air Horns and Confetti 💥💫 Brap brap !

https://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/race-and-equalities-activist-simon-woolley-be-knighted-queen?fbclid=IwAR2CS0z_Lmj1v-rekXH6QBqVf_5DMWJ5FGCifxxaPYv0eBbG9_kVXfdfIjI

Reflection on Mental Health Week On #LeeJaspersDriveTime talking to Viv Ahmun discussing mental health among black men. #Blaksox

Westminster Abbey Should Return Ethiopia's Sacred Religious

 Westminster Abbey.

Former Deputy Mayor of London writes its time to return all historical and religious  artefacts bathed in blood and stolen by Britain during colonialism.

Somewhere, in the cavernous and murky depths of London's ancient Westminster Abbey, lies a deeply religious artefact, stolen by  the greatest Imperial thieves of the 19th century, the Brits. The object, a religious and sacred tablet called a tabot, was looted from  Abyssinia in 1868, now known as modern day Ethiopia. This particular item is a holy relic to around 35 million members of the Ethiopian Christian Church, representing one the oldest branches of Christianity in recorded human history.

First I ask, dear reader that yiu take five minutes too simply sign, share  and support our demand that Westminster Abbey Should Return Ethiopia's Sacred Religious Relic.

So revered is this particular object, that only priests from the country's Ethiopian Orthodox church are able to lay their eyes upon it. The tabot is said to symbolise the Ark of the Covenant.

This incredibly important artefact is nothing more than a small tablet, one that was among fifteen so called tabots and other precious artefacts stolen by the British Empire' powerful Army and Navy, who were,  at the time were  the largest cultural looters and vandals in the world. Hundreds of priceless objects were looted by the British in 1868 from Maqdalan in northern Ethiopia, from the mountain fortress of the then Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II.

The Abyssinian expedition was an exercise in projecting Britain's imperial power right across the globe. Formerly an ally of Britain, Emperor Tewodros II foolishly fell out with his colonial oppressors and in an on-going dispute, and made the mistake of jailing British citizens and representatives of the Government as hostage. 

Its wasn't a one off either, age Emperor detained any and all of the various representatives dispatched by the British Queen Victoria to negotiate the freedom of the held British captives. In response Britain dispatched its powerful Royal Navy, sending 280 steam and sail ships, 7000 camels, 13,000 donkeys and 13,000 British and Indian soldiers, to East africa in an Imperial effort to save the lives of eight Britons and the reputation of the British Empire.

The ensuing battle was quick and decisive with total surrender and collapse of the Abyssinian forces, and as the battle become a slaughter the Abyssinian Emperor shot himself, ironically it is said, with a pistol given to him, as a personal gift by Queen Victoria herself. 

British Barbarians at the gate, 

And as we all know, to the victor goes the spoils, and with the British that usually involved the economic, cultural, physical rape and destruction of a country and its people. The Army was let loose to reap the profits of war, As a result, hundreds, if not thousands, of Abyssinian precious religious and historical artefacts were being shipped home to the motherland, as prize booty, imperial theft, the bloody benefit of brutal conquest of the seething "barbarian lands".

The modus operandi that routinely followed British imperial victory was barbarism, theft and brutal oppression, alongside wholesale cultural destruction and religious vandalism. This was not theft purely for financial gain although greed was clearly a factor, no this was an abject lesson in imperial domination and the consequent cultural annihilation and wholesale oppression that can be expected, in the face of defiance or rebellion to the letter and law of British imperial order.

Lieutenant General Sir Robert Napier

These events all took place under the leadership Victorian Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier, a British hero, who proudly wore the butcher apron, having fought in India and China and whose famous battle cry was "Never give way to barbarians".

Unsurprisingly this is a man who today features as one of top Tory, Jacob Rees Mogg's most admired of  Britain's Victorian war heroes.

Today these tabots are owned by many British institutions including the British Museum. Just one was donated to Westminster Abbey and is the cause of the current controversy. 

The tabot itself, was one of 15 donated by a returning army officer. Then in 1870, the architect George Gilbert Scott incorporated the tabot into his designs for a new Abbey altar in the Henry VII Lady Chapel. 

Now, over 140 years later and invisible to almost everyone who visit the great Abbey, hidden at the back of that dusty 1870s altar in the Henry VII Lady Chapel rests the stolen stone. 

Even today this relic continues to carry powerful resonance for Ethiopian Christians, over the years whilst in  British possession, from time to time senior Ethiopian Christian clergy have been allowed to pray in front of the tabot as part of their religious observance and devotions.

Remarkably, in an act of unbelievable cultural arrogance, Westminster Abbey recently refused point-blank, to allow Ethiopian Christian clergy and senior leaders of the church, who sought the Abbeys permission, to both observe and pray before the tabot.

The Abbeys response was bizarre, disgusting and insulting.  

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper Samuel Berhanu, a deacon in the Ethiopian church in London was furious, "I was very shocked and surprised," He added, "I just couldn't believe that in the 21st century you could have this mentality whereby they have no regard to cultural, religious issues. They were not even open to discussion."

I'd go further, Im not shocked and whilst I'm no religious expert, I'd safely hazard a guess and say that God doesn't condone theft, that he or she loves a repentant sinner, and  Justice demands that those who know better, do better.

Let me be crystal clear, it is my view that the British period of slavery and colonialism saw Britain, among many other things, commit some of the greatest and most brutal crimes ever recorded in human history.

Its an outrageous act by the Abbey and we are calling upon you to sign and share this petition seeking to right these wrongs and allow access and eventually the return of this items.

During Britain ruled the world, we amassed not only a fortune from the profits of oppression, but collected a vast array of historical, cultural, religious treasures from across the world and ferried them back to the motherland to enhance its reputation as the most powerful nation on God's green earth. 

That was then and thank God those days are long gone. Today Britain is a shadow of its former self and having lost the trappings of Empire, there can be no excuse for the continued retention of these looted artefacts from across the world.  Principles of reparation and natural justice demand the return of these precious artefacts to their country of origins. 

Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum said in 2006, in what was a remark that for me defined English exceptionalism, stupidity and narrow mindedness stated boldly that in his opinion "repatriation is yesterday's question". 

I think its very much todays question and it involves the cone poet of justice and reparation. The UK needs to right the wrongs of Britains imperial past.

Quite frankly all British and European museums should be emptied of their stolen colonial goods, in their entirety and without exception. From the Star of India to the Benin Bronzes all must be returned, should be returned, will be returned, and it is we, the modern-day descendants of  the colonial victims, its we who must lead the campaign for the immediate return of these stolen goods. 

And  these days, this demand is not  just the politically correct opinion of some left-wing activist on a soapbox, no... even the young French President Michelle Macron agrees. Recently he published a report on this subject and concluded that European nations, including France, were both morally and legally compelled to return these treasured artefacts to their rightful owners, and set a date for France to do so by 2025. 

And here in the UK, a British Church of Englandpriest, the Rev John McLuckie was outraged at the response of the Abbey. He told the Sunday Observer recently: 

"This is completely unacceptable. Sacrilege would not be too strong a word. It's loot, taken violently and inappropriately in the first place. 

A tabot is a very holy object; no one can see it apart from priests. Westminster Abbey is one of the most visited sites in London. To have it on public display there is an offence to Orthodox Ethiopian Christians. For one Christian church to refuse to return it to another seems profoundly wrong." 

It's an extraordinary act of arrogance. Returning the it to Ethiopia would be an act of goodwill. There's no good reason for the abbey to have it. More importantly, it doesn't belong to them."

In 2015 Zimbabwe requested England's natural history natural Museum to return the decapitated heads of Zimbabwean warriors. This was denied with the museum stating it wasn't sure of the provenance of their heads. Then again in 2017 the South African Khi and Nguni people demanded the reparation of their  ancient ancestors remains that were stolen and taken to Europe

Maybe its time those of us here in Britain who decry the dirty little secrets stored up in British museums, took a leaf out of the book of the Occupy Movement and occupied some of the offending museums until the goods are returned.

There is something deeply depressing and somewhat spiritually macabre about wanting to hold onto other people's religious and historic relics, to have the interred bones of dead Royal Africans stored up in a backroom utility store alongside shrunken heads and sacred texts. The old saying "don't trouble old bones' speak an ancient wisdom that says no good can come of troubling ancient spirits,

The deeper selfish irony is these historical artefacts have no significance and or sacred meaning, valuable objects that are not even fully understood appreciated by Europeans who horde them. They hang in their museums for reasons of inflated national prestige and desired status.

Rene Maran, the first black writer to win the French Prix Goncourt, summed up the view of the victims of empire when  in 1921 wrote in his one of his most famous novels he wrote,

"Civilization, civilization, the pride of the Europeans, and the charnel house of innocents... you build your kingdoms on corpses." 

Today the rotting stench and  smoke of colonial  genocide, rape and theft, emanating from artefacts that are bathed in blood, continues to permeate and denigrate the reputation of a nation. A strong nation, hypocritical and highly dangerous nation a nation whose claimed to own the alter of moral superiority and civilisation, now sees that alter for what it truly is, a now blackened moral and political edifice of "European civilisation"  a claimed morality built upon nothing more than greed, racism, violence and theft. 

The fact is European 20th-century colonialism is one of the greatest unacknowledged crimes of human history. The misplaced moral certitude of the "white mans burden is today replaced with the stench of moral decrepitude inculcated and nurtured as a result of a deep indifference to the universal principles of justice.

Such is the lingering bitter legacy of Empire that even today, the brutal stone cold reality is that no matter how priceless, sacred or important such religious and historical artefacts are to a nation, its history and its people, their arrogant claims to ownership are resolute, despite the reality of the body miasma that secured ownership by dominating European powers. It was a scandal then and remains a scandal now. 

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Racism in the NHS: A low level localised fever 'bubbling away in the background" or a toxic and deadly epidemic?

Please Share. #RacismAtKings 

The Richard Hastings now famous case, that of a former IT manager at Kings College who was sacked by his employer after 19 yrs. Loyal service and eventually won £1 million compensation at Employment Tribunal is just one of many such examples I have discovered of a culture of workplace racism within the National Health Service.

Richards's nightmare experience in many ways characterises a common experience as related by many black NHS employees. In the 1950/60's the Windrush pioneering generation frequently were met with racial hostility and hatred.


Many faced comments such as being told to, "wash that dirty black off your skin", and face the most profound racial and physical abuse.

Kings CEO Dr Clive Kay 

Seventy years on, although many things have changed in relation to NHS black workers, facing awful racism in the workplace, that reality remains an all too familiar tale today. Whilst the crude racism of yesteryear has all but gone from the NHS, there remains a thriving culture of racial privilege proving racism is alive in the NHS.

There is a deep irony that an institution whose purpose is to cure illness and disease appears to be an incubator of this enduring malady – but it comes as no surprise to thousands of black staff working there.

Over the course of making my soon-to-be-released documentary #RacismAtKings (more about that later) I interviewed very many current and former staff, who are or have worked at Kings College Hospital London. In this documentary, I feature Richard and others

The narrative I heard back from all was horrifyingly consistent with Richards's own terrible experience. Time and time again I heard workers speak of trying to confront racism and finding themselves becoming targeted by management as a result.

And these are not isolated examples, there is a much deeper systemic problem in Kings. That problem is reflected more broadly in the NHS nationally. Next time you have the opportunity to chat with a minority ethnic NHS worker, casually drop into the conversation "How are things for black people working in your hospital?"

No doubt some will be initially reluctant to speak badly of their employer – after all let's not forget most are there out of a sense of vocation, not self-interest. But with gentle encouragement, these NHS Black workers will withdraw their finger from the NHS dyke and a rush of fetid tales will wash away your disbelief.

Black and Asian nurses have a strong reputation for going the extra mile for patients. Doctors from all BAME backgrounds take a Hippocratic oath to do no harm "premium non-nocere,".

So much real and lasting harm is being done to black staff and patients inside the walls of our much-loved health service -  which leads us back to Mr Hastings.

Let me briefly reiterate that the events that engulfed him making the point that these are are neither rare nor exceptional instances. A recent report by the NHS Leadership Academy states "racism is bubbling away in the background"

The report shows that things are in an incredibly bad way within the NHS with a massive 81% of acute hospital trusts, reporting a higher proportion of BAME staff, as compared to white staff stated they had "personally experienced discrimination" from their supervisor or colleagues, and there were similar results at 80% of ambulance trusts, 87% of community trusts and 73% of mental health and learning disability trusts.

The Workforce Race Equality Standard. A series of national, race equality progress reports, published annually to show the extent of progress made, also found a higher proportion of BAME NHS staff experiencing harassment, bullying and abuse from both patients and the public, responses constituted a staggering 44% of acute trusts, 60% of ambulance trusts, 65% of community trusts and 80% of mental health and learning disability trusts.

The majority of BAME staff questioned in the study, also said that they did not believe their organisation offered equal career progressions for BME and white staff this was true for black staff at 86% of acute trusts, 50% of ambulance trusts, 80% of mental health and learning disability trusts and a shocking 100% of community trusts.

All of this information is well documented, is in the public domain and widely reported. One has thousands of very serious questions given these appalling figures, is why despite all of the NHS commitment to tackling racial inequality over the last 20 to 40 years does this situation continue to exist?

The real reason for such stunning lack of progress, is that the leadership of the NHS including senior staff and the public treat racism like a common cold – it's irritating, rub song Vicks on your chest, take some cough syrup and wait for it to go away.

It is not until pneumonia claims a life that the system reacts with any sense of urgency. When a leading NHS Trust, such as Kings College Hospital in London, is ordered to pay £1m in damages to a former employee for outright and blatant racial workplace discrimination – what this case and these reports demonstrate is that the NHS, doesn't have a common cold, it has acute pneumonia misdiagnosed as a common cold.

The case. 

Dawn Broderick Kings Executive Director Workplace Development 

Richard Hastings was an IT manager with King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in south London. Mr Hastings was accused of assault after an affray with a contractor and delivery van driver in the hospital's car park in 2015.

This particular incident began one bright morning when Mr Hastings, who was in a loading bay at the hospital, waiting for a parking space to become free. As he waited he became involved in a minor parking dispute and was subsequently sworn at by a white van driver. When Mr Hastings approached the van, which contained three men, he said the driver made a number of racially charged comments during a "war of words". In the heated argument, Mr Hastings said the contractor told him about his skin colour, telling him: "Careful it doesn't come off".

Mr Hastings said that when he gave the driver his name the white van man reacted with disbelief, apparently shocked that Richard had such an "English-sounding name". When the contractor found out he was a manager at the hospital, Mr Hastings said he exclaimed: "Look! They'll let anything happen here" yet another racially charged comment.

At one point the white van driver placed his hand on his forearm and he reacted by lifting his and in so doing unintentionally made contact with the contractor's face. Mr Hastings called the hospital's security office for help during the confrontation but nobody came to his aid. Black hospital staff take care of the nation's sick but frequently find themselves deserted by their employers and institutions when suffering from racist abuse or physical attack at work.

This begs the question who takes care of the black care-takers??

After the incident, Mr Hastings told colleagues what had happened and with their encouragement he reported it. But after an allegation was made that he assaulted white van man he was summarily suspended.

After a formal investigation by Kings, which the tribunal found was tainted by "unconscious bias", Mr Hastings was dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct.

Kings had sacked him after an " investigation" that ignored his allegations that he had been subjected to racist abuse. Their flawed disciplinary process was also found, by the tribunal to have unfairly painted Mr Hastings as "the aggressor", based on their own preconceptions of him as an aggressive black man.

This is a common stereotype deployed against thousands of black male staff, but thankfully for Richard, on this occasion, the hospital car park CCTV footage showed the contrary.

Despite being the real aggressors the white van contractors were seen by the Trust as "the victims" during the investigation process. The tribunal found, as a matter of fact, that during the investigatory hearing Mr Hastings provided hard evidence of racial abuse and of foul and offensive language being directed at him, but this was not investigated. In fact, in reality, that evidence was ignored.

The employment tribunal quite rightly concluded, "by failing to investigate this the claimant was treated less favourably because of race."

Mr Hastings has been left "completely broken" by this experience. He has so far failed to re-establish his career despite applying for many jobs, had lost weight and had trouble sleeping. He told the Guardian newspaper at the time: "It was very hurtful but what was even more hurtful was the treatment from the organisation I'd been with for nearly 19 years. I was devastated. Each part of the process left me even more helpless. This whole thing over three years has taken a tremendous toll on my physical and mental health. It was totally unnecessary."

The tribunal said his evidence, "as a black man of Caribbean origin, was treated with unwarranted distrust and disbelief". By contrast, the tribunal found him to be an honest witness while identifying numerous inconsistencies and flaws in the opposing evidence.

A spokesman for the trust said: "The trust has apologised to Mr Hastings and we would like to extend that apology once again." He said the trust had implemented changes to improve support to staff. But haven't we heard this many times before, over the last 40 years?

These well-used platitudes are facile and an insult to the 200,000 black staff working in the NHS. As taxpayers we are the ones who foot the bill for the millions that are spent by incompetent managers, defending indefensible race claims.

As customers of the NHS, we are the ones who ultimately suffer because staff performance drops when staff are feeling abused, harassed and discriminated against. At a time when the NHS is casting its net around the world, to fill the current shortage of doctors and nurses, Can we really afford an NHS with a reputation for treating black people like tainted goods?

My best wishes go out to Mr Hastings, we shall continue to advocate for his colleagues at King's and tell their stories.

In coming weeks I am reaching out to Elliot Browne and others who are part of the £1m plus NHS compensation club to learn their views on how their cases have impacted practice in their former trusts.

In future blogs, I shall be throwing a searing spotlight on hotspots of bullying and racial harassment. Send me your stories. I'm hearing there is something "bubbling away in the background" in Berkshire – it shall come to light right here - watch this space.

If you have a case you like me to cover, that further exposes racism suffered by black workers within the National Health Service then please do contact me directly by emailing me all reaching out on social media.

That which is done in the dark must be brought into the light if we are to finally bring an end to the appalling working conditions black and ethnic minority workers within the NHS.

Lee Jasper will be speaking at the Unite branch meeting to take place on June 11th at 1pm taking place at Kings College Hospital, the boardroom. Contact Unite Branch Secretary Frank Wood for more details email frank.wood@nhs.net