Saba Poursaeedi is taking Hightown Housing Association to an Employment Tribunal. (Image: Saba Poursaeedi)
A British dad claims he was sacked from his ￡37,000-a-year job after voluntarily disclosing he supported Reform UK.
On March 26, 2024, Saba Poursaeedi, 36, whose wife was due to give birth in a matter of months, was told he had passed his probation at Hightown Housing Association. Hours later, he says he was told that his job had been “withdrawn”.
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Mr Poursaeedi, who is crowdfunding to cover costs associated with his legal dispute with Hightown, told the Express: “It was probably one of the worst moments of my entire life. It was, and I remember thinking about it, comparable to finding out that my cousin had been killed in a motorcycle accident three years before."
“It was absolutely earth-shattering. The world fell just fell out of my a**.
“I was going from a mentality of being completely financially secure - having arrived. [I was] looking forward to a job where I could really get my teeth into it.
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“And then finding out that none of that was the case and [thinking] ‘oh you are going to be out of a job in a matter of months, you are going to have a second child in a matter of months, and you have never been in a more financially precarious situation in your entire life’... that was the shift.”
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Mr Poursaeedi stood in Harpenden and Berkhamsted at the general election. (Image: Saba Poursaeedi)
Since October 2023, Mr Poursaeedi has been working as a maternity cover recruitment assistant at Hightown, one of the UK’s largest housing associations, for around ￡20,000 a year.
He applied for and landed a permanent role worth ￡37,164 a year on March 1 2024. During this period his wife became pregnant with the couple’s second child.
He said: “While I was serving that two months’ notice, I was on cloud nine. Finally I had done it, finally I’d gotten out of the recruitment mire, earning some decent money just in time for a new baby.
“[I was] effectively looking at doubling my salary, which would have been amazing."
However, on March 12, he told Hightown’s management that he had been volunteering for Reform UK as a Hertfordshire county co-ordinator and that he was the prospective parliamentary candidate for Harpenden and Berkhamsted.
He said: “I was absolutely explicit [that] nothing is set in stone, it’s all voluntary, my job is going to come first.
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Richard Tice said no one should face discrimination for private political beliefs. (Image: Getty)
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“I didn’t think it would be an issue at all. That’s why I was so vocal and transparent about it."
Mr Poursaeedi claimed he passed his probation two weeks later with “glowing” praise from his manager. The manager, Mr Poursaeedi, claimed that he had “done himself and the team proud”. A matter of hours later, he was told his job had been “withdrawn”, it is claimed.
According to legal papers submitted to the Employment Tribunal, Mr Poursaeedi was asked to meet with Natalie Sturrock, Hightown’s director of housing, and Kerry Demner, its HR head.
During the meeting, it was argued that his activities and public profile with Reform created a conflict of interest in his new role as a resident involvement officer.
Ms Sturrock “claimed that the policies that the claimant would be campaigning for would be in direct conflict with Hightown’s values”, according to Mr Poursaeedi’s legal case.
Multiple examples are cited in the legal papers. Ms Sturrock is alleged to have said that Reform’s policy of reducing immigration was incompatible with Hightown’s, as the company “houses immigrants and supports refugees”.
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She is also claimed to have said that Reform’s plan to “scrap net zero policies” directly contradicted Hightown’s intention to be a net zero company.
On the subject of the green belt, “Reform wants to preserve it, whereas Hightown wants to build on it”, Ms Sturrock is said to have told Mr Poursaeedi.
Mr Poursaeedi, the son of an Iranian immigrant, said that he was willing to completely dissociate himself from Reform in order to keep his job.
“I even offered to resign from everything. Purge my Twitter, purge my Facebook - unperson myself online. Resign from the Reform party, resign from every other position, and they still said no”, he said.
“I was losing ￡1,500 a month. But not only that, because of the stress of the situation, I had to take three weeks off work because I just couldn’t cope.
“That then knocked me down to statutory sick pay, because even though I’d passed my probation, sick pay only kicked in after month seven. This was happening in month six, so I took a further hit.
“Then I had to take more unpaid leave when my wife gave birth, because I wasn’t there long enough to qualify for paternity pay.”
“It did shake me to my core”, he added.
To add to his ordeal, Mr Poursaeedi claimed Hightown hinted he may be able to keep his job.
“They also dangled the carrot of ‘we will decide on your reinstatement after the election’”, he alleged.
“This confused me, I didn’t know why. And then immediately after the election they said: ‘you’re not getting the job’”.
“I think they did that to basically keep me quiet during the election cycle.”
Hightown refused to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
Reform UK Deputy Chairman Richard Tice MP said: “No one should face discrimination for the political beliefs they hold in their private lives. This is especially true in the case of Saba Poursaeedi—a father of two, a proud patriot, and a former Reform UK candidate.
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"Saba was a dedicated employee at Hightown Housing Commission, quickly earning promotions thanks to his hard work and excellent performance reviews.
"The levels of prejudice across both public and private sectors against those with patriotic views are deeply concerning. It is my hope that the UK will take steps to abolish these outrageous woke agendas, just as our neighbours in the US have begun to do. What is happening to this country must be reversed.”
The preliminary hearing is on April 23.