A housing officer was sacked for being a Reform UK candidate and reposting a Matt cartoon from The Telegraph, according to legal documents obtained by this newspaper. FSU member Saba Poursaeedi, a father of two, is suing one of Britain’s biggest housing associations for political discrimination after he was allegedly fired over his links to the Right-wing party. The Telegraph has the story:
Mr Poursaeedi was dismissed as a resident involvement officer after the charitable housing association told him Reform’s policies on immigration, net zero and housing were “in direct conflict” with its own “values”.
Hightown Housing Association has denied Mr Poursaeedi was sacked for his political views but has admitted his position with Reform was not compatible with “a customer-facing role”.
Hightown held up as evidence a “racist cartoon from The Telegraph newspaper”, which Mr Poursaeedi had retweeted.
Matt Pritchett’s cartoon published in January last year depicts a housewife wearing a burka in a sideswipe at the prospect of Abu Dhabi purchasing The Telegraph amid concerns over human rights violations in the Gulf State.
There has never been any previous suggestion the cartoon is racist while Matt, the award-winning Telegraph cartoonist, is widely recognised for his gentle perspective on British life.Mr Poursaeedi claims he was also refused a second job as a damp and mould inspector because of his links to the party led by Nigel Farage.
Mr Poursaeedi told The Telegraph: “I was politically purged. I want this to go through the courts because I want Hightown to be presented with a court judgment that says, ‘you were wrong’.”Mr Poursaeedi, 36, whose father is Iranian, said: “Everybody is feeling this noose around their neck in terms of what they can and can’t say. I find what’s happened to me so absurd, so insane. This is their mentality and you can’t quite believe it.”
Mr Farage told The Telegraph: “The levels of prejudice in our public, private and charitable sectors against anybody with patriotic views – like this man losing his job – are staggering. Hopefully, the UK will follow America where woke is dying very quickly.”
He said the case had similarities with his ordeal at the hands of Coutts, the private bank owned by NatWest, which decided to shut down his account after compiling a dossier on his political views.Toby Young, the founder of the Free Speech Union, the campaign group funding Mr Poursaeedi’s legal claim, said: “Saba has been subjected to a political witch hunt. Being an organiser for Reform, a party that one in five Britons say they’ll vote for at the next election, should not be a reason to deprive someone of their livelihood.
“It’s particularly egregious when you factor in that Hightown doesn’t have a problem with employing Labour Party organisers.“Hightown should be encouraging its employees to get involved in democratic politics, not punishing them for it.”
Mr Poursaeedi, from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, began working for Hightown in October 2023, working part-time as maternity cover on a salary of a little over £15,000.
In February last year, he took a permanent job as a resident involvement officer on a £37,000 salary. On March 12, he voluntarily disclosed he was Reform’s prospective parliamentary candidate for the Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency as well as the party’s county co-ordinator, a voluntary role carried out for free.
Two weeks later, on March 26, Mr Poursaeedi passed his probationary period for his maternity cover role with “glowing” praise – his manager wrote: “He has done himself and the team proud” – only to be told hours later that the permanent job of resident involvement officer had been “withdrawn”.
In filings with the employment tribunal, lawyers for Mr Poursaeedi said he was requested to attend a meeting with Natalie Sturrock, Hightown’s director of housing, and Kerry Demner, its head of human resources.
According to the legal claim, Ms Sturrock informed him that “his activities and public profile with the political party, Reform, gave rise to a conflict of interest with the work he would be doing as a resident involvement officer”.
According to his legal case, Ms Sturrock “claimed that the policies that the claimant would be campaigning for would be in direct conflict with Hightown’s values”.She then went on to give three examples. According to the legal case, Ms Sturrock said that Reform’s anti-immigration policies were incompatible with Hightown’s, which “houses immigrants and supports refugees”; that Reform’s plan to “scrap net zero policies” was in direct contravention of Hightown’s desire to be a net zero company; while on the green belt “Reform wants to preserve it, whereas Hightown wants to build on it”, Ms Sturrock allegedly told Mr Poursaeedi.
Of the meeting, Mr Poursaeedi said: “I couldn’t breathe. I was completely speechless. My world fell apart. I was completely blindsided. While the job was on the table I had financial stability and the chance of earning some proper money. And then it was all gone. I felt like I was being crushed.
“I was incredibly emotional. I was breaking down in tears.”
According to the legal documents, Hightown then informed Mr Poursaeedi that he was “now only eligible to apply for roles that were not ‘public-facing’.”
On April 4, Ms Demner, the HR head, wrote to Mr Poursaeedi confirming the offer of the job had been withdrawn because “we have been unable to approve your declaration of interest”.
After the job offer was withdrawn, Mr Poursaeedi applied for a number of other jobs with Hightown, needing the money with a toddler and his wife heavily pregnant with their second child.
He discovered his role with Reform meant he was even unsuitable for a job as a damp and mould inspector with Hightown. Mr Poursaeedi said the housing association “took him to one side and told him that because of ‘your Reform affiliations’ the role of damp and mould inspector is also off limits”.Mr Poursaeedi launched his legal action because his “philosophical beliefs” were “protected” under the Equality Act. In his legal claim, he said he was the victim of “belief discrimination” over his views, which include “prioritising economic freedom, national sovereignty and environmental conservation”.
His lawyers accused Hightown of discrimination because they “treated him and his beliefs as inferior and unworthy of respect in a democracy”. Mr Poursaeedi’s lawyers also accused Hightown of harassment by “creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him”.
His lawyers said that Hightown’s head of governance and its company secretary Trudi Kleanthous had stood as a Labour Party councillor in a local ward in 2019 and was a Labour ward representative in Dunstable. Mr Poursaeedi accused the housing association of operating “double standards”.
Worth reading in full.
