[4] More recently, he stood as the Respect Party candidate for the Croydon North by-election in November 2012,[5] and is a race relations activist.
[8] Over the next decade, Jasper became a race and human rights activist, sitting on various committees and groups such as the Inner London Education Authority.
[3] Jasper was one of the main officers of the National Assembly Against Racism[3] and has since been praised for developing the "cautious rapprochement" between communities and the police in London.
[13] Jasper was criticised by Conservative politician Shaun Bailey as "representing the old school of black politics", and was accused of playing the "race card" too often.
[20] In July 2011, Jasper in jest suggested that there were physical similarities between the extremist Anders Behring Breivik and Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
[2] He has been a high-profile campaigner about deaths in police custody, raising the cases of Sarah Reed[22] and Mohamud Hassan,[23] with his activism having been covered by the Financial Times.
[24] He is today Vice Chair of BAME Lawyers 4 Justice[citation needed] campaigned to end the deportation of ex-offenders and UK residents deemed to Jamaican nationals.
[citation needed] Lee Jasper was appointed as Director for Policing and Equalities during Ken Livingstone's 2004–2008 term as Mayor of London.
"[31] Although it was strongly recommended that improvements be made to the GLA's administrative procedures, Jasper was cleared of misconduct in January 2008 with the GLA asserting that: "The report has been issued today of the review of allegations of LDA corruption and collusion in improperly awarding funds made by the journalist Andrew Gilligan in the Evening Standard in a series of articles in December 2007.
"[4] Boris Johnson launched an extensive Forensic Audit Panel investigation to examine in detail all aspects of Jasper's decisions and actions while in office.
That committee reported in July 2008 that Jasper had acted at all times within his remit as a Mayoral adviser, although the panel did express concern about two members of his staff responsible for the Carnival Showcase.
[34] The most recent report, which was produced after a forensic 18-month independent investigation by the law firm DLA Piper and commissioned by the London Development Agency, examined all the fraud and corruption allegations made by the Evening Standard newspaper.
The report published in June 2009 concluded that Jasper had not influenced the funding decisions of the LDA and that there was no evidence of fraud or corruption.
[35] According to a BBC report of the investigation, although Haworth-Maden said he found no evidence of fraud or corruption, he called for a number of administrative improvements at the GLA.
[36] Jasper tweeted in April 2012 that "the white man is the most violent ethnicity in world history, taking death to an industrial scale".
[38] In April 2013, Jasper received press attention for remarking that "black people in Europe and UK can't be racist".