CURRY INDUSTRY IN A HOT SPOT AS BREXIT APPROACHES

▶ Misconceptions about the effects of exiting the EU have left restaurant owners struggling to find employees

Syed Joynu was in for a rude shock on a September morning when he walked into Indos – the curry house he owns just outside London. It was already 10.30am and not a single employee had turned up.

Distraught, he called four of his Romanian staff. Nobody responded. Two others, who also quit their jobs the same day without any notice, later told him the Romanians had already left the country for good, and soon thereafter, Mr Joynu, 62, was forced to shut down the business that earned more than £400,000 (Dh1.8 million) a year.

This was nothing like what he was promised in the Brexit campaign he supported. Mr Joynu was told there would be plenty of workers from South Asia and that restaurants specialising in spicy vindaloos would thrive if only the UK could break free from rules allowing the free movement of people between European Union member states.

Instead, immigration has become tighter, business has suffered, and the workers from eastern Europe he had come to rely on have fled. Getting chefs over to work in Britain’s cherished Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants is near impossible under current immigration laws: even the Queen isn’t paying cooks in Buckingham Palace enough to comply with the rules on foreign skilled workers.

“We didn’t realise what would happen after Brexit and thought we’d be better off,” said Mr Joynu. “If there’s a second vote now, I’d vote to remain in the EU.”

Indos is one of the many British curry houses closing down at a pace of one a day as a shortage of specialist kitchen staff makes the business impossible to run.

It’s an example of how Brexit is betraying the hopes of many who campaigned for it. With immigration considered a driving force behind the Vote Leave referendum win in 2016, the Brexit effect is clear in official data.

The number of European Union citizens working in the UK fell by the most on record in the third quarter, and they are not being replaced.

Prime Minister Theresa May has a target of reducing net annual migration to the tens of thousands from more than 200,000 at present. Her government is aiming for a system after the divorce that gives ministers the flexibility to ease rules for countries with which they strike trade deals, with high-skilled workers prioritised and low-skilled immigration curbed.

Curry house owners sought to avoid a system like that when they campaigned for the UK to leave the EU.

Almost two decades after chicken tikka masala was unofficially declared Britain’s national dish, pro-Leave politicians promised restaurants higher inflows from South Asia with easier visa rules, shutting the door on European workers and allowing lower salary thresholds to hire overseas staff and even regularising undocumented workers.

Chefs are in short supply. The industry, which contributes $5.5 billion to the British economy a year, is struggling to find the additional 30,000 additional workers it immediately needs.

Current rules mandate paying salaries of £35,000 to offer a curry chef’s job to a South Asian, an amount out of reach for most of smaller restaurants, said Bajloor Khan, president of UK Bangladesh Catalysts of Commerce and Industry.

When Buckingham Palace advertised for a royal chef earlier this year, it offered a salary of just over £21,000.

We didn’t realise what would happen after Brexit. If there’s a second vote I’d vote to remain in the European Union SYED JOYNU Indos curry house owner