"British Jobs For British Workers" .... says Sri Lankan Ex-Postmaster out of a job for demanding his customers speak English !!

Meet UKIP's latest recruit and EU Election Candidate (!)

by johnofgwent

Some days you wake up and all seems right with the world - until you turn on the computer and realise the Large Hadron Collider had an unscheduled activation last night and tipped the whole bloody universe into the dimension of the Mad Hatter.

And today is definitely a "Mad Hatter" day. It must be. Either that or Welsh Water pumped recreational drugs into the water main this morning when I was making my breakfast cuppa. Because I can't find any other explanation for this little tale that you just could not make up if you were BBC News Editor In Chief....

Over on this BBC web page you can read for yourself the tale of UKIP's latest recruit and Euro-Election candidate.

A postmaster who refused to serve customers unless they spoke English is set to stand for election as a Euro MP for the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Sri Lankan-born Deva Kumarasiri told customers at his Nottingham post office they had to speak the language so he could understand them. But he was forced to leave his job after going public with his demand. Mr Kumarasiri has now revealed his ambitions for a political career after meeting UKIP leader Nigel Farage. The 40-year-old father-of-two said: "Nigel got in touch and invited me to London for a chat and we very quickly found that we had lots in common. had no hesitation in joining UKIP and agreeing to stand for them in the Euro elections, because I want to get elected and speak up for Britain".

"There are only nine weeks before voting, so there's a lot of work to be done. My priorities will be to save the pound and push for British jobs for British workers".

"I'll campaign for newcomers to Britain to learn English and seek to persuade them that integration is absolutely vital to the country's future."

Mr Kumarasiri, who claims he was expelled from the Liberal Democrats because of his post office stance, said friends and family had been widely supportive of his joining UKIP. Mr Farage said his new East Midlands candidate for the European elections on 4 June had "passion, belief and patriotism".

But there is more to this than meets the eye. The BBC News Web Page I linked to above also has links to two more, and they put a slightly different spin on this chap's current situation.

Here is a link to an interview the guy did on the 19th March for "NewsBeat" which used to be a programme slot on Radio 1 that did "Dumbed Down Jazzed Up News For Radio 1 Airheads". Now for a Dumbed Down Radio 1 News show it makes a lot of sense, he says he's doing this because he can't understand what these people want and if he gets it wrong it could come back on him.

Here is the Beeb's standard news coverage the same day of the same item, and note the slant on the issue is somewhat different ... the emphasis here is on the way his service to other customers is taking a beating because of the time it takes to deal with these people who refuse to learn english.

Mr Kumarasiri said he had turned away about six customers after he said they wasted his time and infuriated other customers because they could not understand English. "If somebody stands up and says 'sorry, I can't serve you if you can't speak English', then they'll think twice," he said. "I am part of a service but how can I serve them if I don't understand what they are asking for?".

The 40-year-old felt he was only asking people to make the same efforts he had done himself. "I was born and raised in a different country, my language was different, my religion was different. "But when I came to England I obeyed the British way of life, I got into the British way of life. That is what I ask everyone else to do - respect the country where you are working and living."

Ominously. of course, officialdom had other ideas ...

In a statement, Post Office Counters Ltd said its "branches were open to all customers" and "steps would be taken" to ensure this at the Sneinton store.

... and ...

Afzal Sadif from the Nottingham Racial Equality Council said Mr Kumarasiri's stance was "unacceptable".

Two days later the BBC run another page on the chap, now saying he left his job ... and now it seems a small number of followers of the cult of the dead paedophile were behind a petition to have him removed - a petition the local Labour MP was all too keen to endorse, it seems.

A postmaster from Nottingham who refused to serve customers who could not speak English has left his job. Sri Lankan-born Deva Kumarasiri, who worked at the sub post office on Sneinton Boulevard, claimed non-English speakers frustrated other customers and made it difficult to do his job properly. Mr Kumarasiri said most people supported him but he was "forced out by a small minority of people who don't want to integrate into society" who launched a petition against him.

He claimed he was threatened and said Muslim leaders in the community started a petition against him, so he moved at his own request. He said he would now work at a different branch.

Managers at the Post Office said the service was for all and they were concerned about the impact on trade. Abida Raja, whose family runs the branch, said they had to take action: "It was my brother's decision because obviously he was very upset by those comments, because we're losing customers because of it. "He had to do something about it, because obviously we don't feel that way about anyone else, we don't discriminate against any customer coming in, because obviously the customers keep the business going."

Mr Kumarasiri's policy had also been criticised by the local Racial Equality Council and MP for Nottingham East, John Heppell.

And then by the 27th of March he was on the dole for not being a staunch multiculturalist

A postmaster from Nottingham who refused to serve customers who could not speak English says he feels "let down" after losing his job. Sri Lankan-born Deva Kumarasiri worked at the sub post office on Sneinton Boulevard before being moved to another branch in Netherfield. He claimed non-English speakers made it difficult to do his job properly.

On Thursday, Mr Kumarasiri was told by the agency that employed him that his contract would not be renewed. His employer, agency Newrose Personnel, was unavailable for comment.

Mr Kumarasiri's policy had also been criticised by the local Racial Equality Council and MP for Nottingham East, John Heppell. Mr Heppell said: "This was a little bit strange. What do you do with tourists? "If I was abroad and if someone refused to sell me a stamp because my French or German was not good enough, I think I would have every right to be offended and I suspect people in this country would be offended by what this man was doing."

Well I have news for Mister Heppell.

Come with me to the BNCF Metro Station across the road from the Leopold Hotel, Brussels, just around the corner from the European Parliament. Let me see you go up the Belgian French man in a smart BNCF uniform - which looks just like the uniform worn by the Chief Of Police in Bogart's Casablanca - and try to buy a ticket in English. You will get a gallic shrug and the famed "screw you, you english bastard" look and I know this because that is exactly what I got when asking "Do You Speak English". However he wasnlt ready for what I did next. For I carry deep within the ability to not only speak French, but think it as a native. It takes a while to switch over fully and even when it does I am not sure the grammer is right, but when I got the (entirely expected) gallic shrug I engaged my on-board babel fish and uttered this little lot in full oral autopilot ....

"Eh Bien Monsieur, A quelle heures depart le train BNCF pour Bataille? Je Voudrais acheter quatre billet retour, et aussi quatre <> pour moi, ma femme et mes enfants qui est douze et huit ans"

To this day I'm not sure they were the right words and I KNOW the grammar was screwed. "Bataille" is the station nearest the monument to the battle of Waterloo and I was after four return tickets plus four day tickets on the Belgian Metro. But when I "cut over" to use French as a native, thinking and speaking without the intermediate English translation, the words come out in a thick Picardy Accent - an accent I have thanks in large measure to my old French Master, but which is kept oiled by friends I still drink with who come from that neck of the woods, but also because it's in my genes. I am after all a descendant of the Norman French military aristocracy who crossed the English Channel to educate the heathen saxons and celts of Albion in the ways of civility almost a thousand years ago. I bet there'll be a few comments about that !!

Something in what I said or how I said it worked a treat though. The peaked capped jobsworth in the ticket office flew into a frenzy of activity, took my money, fetched my tickets, but then escorted me personally to show me the platform from which the train to the battle of Waterloo Monument left from.

I find it hysterically funny that the Labour MP in al this seems to think he can expect to be treated wonderfully as long as he shouts at these bloody foreigners while on holiday.

But that's not even half as funny as the sight of a load of "BNP bashers" on ukdebate fawning over this bloke nicking our policies and our strapline. Now that IS funny !!!!