Britain should leave the European Union (EU) to save thousands of curry houses from closing, senior figures in the industry have said.
Pasha Khandaker, President of the Bangladesh Caterers Association (BCA), said EU rules allowing free movement have led to the British government having to restrict qualified workers from the rest of the world.
The Daily Mail reports that as the best curry chefs come from outside the EU, this means that thousands of restaurants may have to close as they cannot hire the right staff.
Mr Khandaker criticised the “double standards” where “JP Morgan can bring in skilled people from outside” but small businesses cannot.
Other industry leaders also hit out at EU bureaucracy, including restrictions on takeaway services.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Khandaker said: “We’ve been told by the British ministers to employ European Union peoples but the European Union peoples – we welcome them, especially we’ve got some people who are interested to work from Romania and Bulgaria.
“But they’ve never stayed, I don’t blame them. There’s a language problem, cultural problem and mainly the smell problem for them is bad – they can’t stand the curry smell.
“So where can I get these people from? If JP Morgan can bring in skilled people from outside, or big brother’s can do it, why not for the small business? Why’s there double standards in the immigration policy?”
“We should leave the European Union because [it] is creating many pressures – especially for the migration, we could have a better migration, better skilled people from abroad [and] we have to give a chance to everybody in this world who is fit for the job [and] not for their colour, not for their geographical identify,” he added.
Breitbart London reported in March on how ethnic minority voters are embracing Brexit and turning against the European Union.
Expressing surprise at the scale of anger directed against the EU by black voters, Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote said there were two possible reasons: “One is a longstanding feeling that the European project has been anti-black — we’ve seen the emergence of far-right groups, some of them pretty nasty.
“Added to that is that many black people feel they’re competing for jobs with Eastern Europeans. The two things come together in the feeling among some that the ‘EU is really not right for us’.”