My story

My name is Saba Poursaeedi. A proud dad and husband.

My father came to Britain from Iran nearly 50 years ago, striving for a better future. He met my mum, they fell in love and raised me to be caring, hard-working and honest. They were not very political people. We didn’t have much, but we always had each other. Since I was a teenager, I have always been interested in politics, always curious about what was going on, and the more I learnt the more I became proud to be born and raised in Britain, and the more I believed in national sovereignty, economic freedom, environmental conservation and freedom of speech.

In October 2023 I started a temporary job at Hightown Housing Association.  I really enjoyed working there, I was good at what I did and received very strong performance reviews. I went for a promotion and was delighted when I was offered a permanent role as Resident Involvement Officer which I duly accepted. It was nearly double my salary, which couldn’t have come at a better time with my 2^nd child soon to be born.

I’d never been happier than when I was serving my two months’ notice in my current job. I finally managed to get a job that I could be proud of, finally managed to get one rung up the career ladder and finally earn enough money for my family to be comfortable. Hightown employs over 1000 people, owns and manages over 8000 homes and has a significant income from public funds. I was very excited to be part of such an impactful organisation that had a mission of building homes and supporting people.

However, the rug was pulled from under me before I could do anything about it.

In order to maintain complete transparency with my employers, I voluntarily updated a Declaration of Interest Form where I disclosed that I was now the County Co-ordinator and a Deputy Nominating Officer for Reform UK, and also the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Harpenden and Berkhamsted, pending final party approval. I made it clear that all voluntary work for Reform would be carried out in my spare time, and that I would honour all out of hours commitments to Hightown, elevating them over Reform activity.

Despite this, after Hightown reviewed the Form, I was called into a meeting and told that my association with Reform created a conflict of interest with the work I was doing at Hightown and that they were therefore withdrawing the promotion.

I was so devastated by this news I broke down in the meeting. I pleaded with them to reconsider as I had a young family to support, even offering to remove all of my social media activity, resign from Reform and withdraw from all of my responsibilities. It did not matter – they were insistent that nothing could be done to address this conflict of interest.  

They told me that the policies of Reform did not align with Hightown’s values, pointing in particular to Reform’s policies on immigration (they said Reform wants to end it but Hightown houses immigrants and supports refugees), net zero emissions (they said Reform wants to scrap net zero policies whereas Hightown wants to be a net zero organisation) and green belt land (they said that Reform wants to preserve it whereas Hightown wants to build on it).

I thought perhaps that I could salvage the situation by applying for other roles in Hightown. However, I was told that because of my association with Reform, I would not be considered for any role that was in any way public facing or involved working with tenants, which excluded me from 95% of Hightown roles. I had no choice but to return to the temporary position that I had held prior to the promotion and since this had been in recruitment, it meant having to work on filling the permanent role that had been withdrawn from me, a task that I found devastating. This took a huge toll on my mental health and I went on stress related sick leave. My temporary contract came to an end sooner than expected after the person I had been covering returned earlier than planned and so I found myself unemployed with a new baby to support.

My legal case

With the help of the Free Speech Union, I have instructed a lawyer, Paul Maynard of Gaby Hardwicke Solicitors who, with the barrister Jon Holbrook, have helped me to issue a legal claim against Hightown at the Employment Tribunal for wrongful dismissal, unfair dismissal, belief discrimination and harassment. I only brought the claim after all attempts to get Hightown to reinstate my promotion failed.

Hightown wrongfully dismissed me from my role as Resident Involvement Officer, denied me the applicable contractual notice period, unfairly dismissed me for a reason that related to my political beliefs and/or affiliation, failed to follow the appropriate process for dismissing an employee and discriminated against me because of my protected philosophical beliefs which align with the beliefs of Reform.

Hightown have submitted their Grounds of Resistance to the Employment Tribunal where they admit to withdrawing my promotion on discovering an alleged conflict of interest between my beliefs and Hightown’s values but they deny any unlawfulness. They also referred to some of my social media posts on X such as my reposting of “whilst you scrape and scrap and spend more than 50% of your monthly income on rent, the taxes you pay are being used to house immigrants in social housing. You should be outraged about this" which they say is in conflict with their values and stated that I had reposted a “racist cartoon from the Telegraph”. This was in fact the cartoon by Matt, reproduced below.  

This episode has caused me and my family severe stress and financial hardship. In addition to seeking compensation for the loss and damage that I have suffered, I am hoping that a successful outcome in this case will deter other organisations from putting people through a similar ordeal merely for holding traditional conservative beliefs or openly supporting Reform UK.

Why I need your help

I am seeking to raise an initial target of £3600 which will contribute towards legal costs arising in relation to reviewing Hightown’s pleadings and attending a preliminary hearing once listed.

I have set a stretch target of £28,000 which will cover the subsequent steps involved in the process including disclosure, preparing witness statements and the trial itself.

The total sum that I am seeking to raise is relatively modest as it only needs to cover my solicitor’s costs. I have been fortunate enough to have been offered pro-bono representation by barrister, Jon Holbrook.

Thank you for any contribution you can give. Any unused funds will be put towards other important cases supported by the FSU.