I’m a bit surprise though that there there are such a big percentage of foreigners vs Britons in the hospitality industry, 8 foreigners to 2 britons, if I remember rightly.
Agriculture too, needs a lot of foreigners, and the harvest of fruits and vegetables.
The reasoning behind is because political talk tends to upset and divide the community. Not too sure if European politics passions much people here. I guess you can continue your detail discussions in private. (And you’re right, I should stop too!)
As Harters mentioned there are a number of opinions in your post I very much disagree but also a few things which are simply wrong facts. I would recommend to really start reading in depth, not only some short newspaper articles, about the financial system if the EU over the last 50 years and how much the different countries have benefited overall in economic growth, GDP, average prosperity of individuals etc. You couldn’t be more wrong with the notion that Germany, Italy and France could efforts to financially support the EU - it is the other way around they can effort not to support them if they don’t want to lose the prosperity.
I don’t know the figures, I’m afraid. But it does very much depend which part of the country you are in. We spent last week in North Yorkshire - a generally rural area with small towns. We ate in restaurants every night. Didnt encounter a single foreigner working there. On the other hand, when I travel to London, it’s almost the complete reverse - hospitality industry staff are almost invariable foreign. In my own metro area, around Manchester, it’s mixed - mainly British staff in restaurants but a goodly number of foreigners as well. We currently have low unemployment rates so increasing wages to attract British workers into hospitality may well work but it would then leave staff shortages elsewhere in the economy. There are only a finite number of Britons.
I’m an American but have worked in the UK and work for a UK firm currently. I am having a flashback to when I was in the UK. The political situation was very different. The election dynamics I recall at the time was John Major running against Tony Blair. Ancient history now.
Almost everyone I worked with voted remain. I had an interesting conversation with a friend about how he was going to vote and he told me his father despite being very educated and well off planned on voting exit. My friend told me that his father expected the economic result was going to be negative, but he was comfortable with a not as Great Britain. In his mind, if fewer foreigners were coming to London to buy expensive new flats, that was a good thing. The older generation voted exit by a large margin. There is a clear generational split from what I have seen.
Clearly Brexit is having an impact on our business. We set up a new entity to do business with our EU customers. I’m dealing with a lot of inefficiencies that are a direct result of Brexit. Its costing us time and money. Long term I’m of the view that whatever perceived benefits will be far outweighed by the costs. Remember the bus with the banner about how much more money would go to the NHS if only the UK left? That was a vessel full of warm fertilizer.
Surveys confirm that. This is very much all about “world view” (or culture wars, if you will) that has been an undercurrent in British society for many years. Both sides of the argument sincerely hold their differing views of society and the UK’s place in the international community. There is not a resolution to this anytime soon and the divide will continue to manifest itself in other ways.
By the by, pollsters report that, for many years, a Briton’s attitude to capital punishment was the best indicator of ther attitudes to other issues. The leave/remain position has now replaced that.
The British view of the world is very different than what we perceive in America. As an example, when I was once talking with one of my English mates about what is taught in schools in the UK. He said that history starts at WW II. How England saved the world is the basic theme. The American revolt is barely a footnote.
We can see there is a rationale for not looking for controversy. After all, Churchill observed that: “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we will find that we have lost the future.”
Indeed so. I think we are more different in reality than is assumed because we share a language (broadly speaking). I’ve been visiting the States fairly regularly since 1980 and still say it the most “foreign” country I visit.
When I was in school in the 1960s, history pretty much ended at 1900. I can’t recall the American revolution being included but, as you say, maybe as a footnote. It’s not really an event of any particular significance in British history. More recently, schools have included the teaching of the Great War and I’ve been able to help a couple of schools with their projects. As time has moved on, I presume WW2 is now on the syllabus as a “major event”, although I’ve no idea how the teaching is structured. Hopefully, it now includes the military contributions made by Dominion and Empire troops. Here’s a link to relevent subjects taught to primary school age children - https://www.keystagehistory.co.uk/primary-ww2/
My job is to tell you whether a restaurant is any good. Surely that job has been done. Imad’s Syrian Kitchen represents all the good things. It’s a hell of a story. Once upon a time I would have felt like a mere observer, but as the dismal anti-immigration rhetoric has intensified, as the little Englanders have frothed at the mouth about those who have the audacity to flee war and desolation, as if the search for better was a personal insult, I have increasingly felt myself to have skin in the game. I am the great-grandchild of earlier refugees who came looking for better and gave more than they took.
Or to put it in terms relevant to a restaurant column, we do not have a more diverse restaurant sector than any other country in Europe by accident. It’s the product of waves of immigration. And yes, of course, some of that is also the product of rampant imperialism; the two things are often fellow travellers. Still, the fact is that if you enjoy eating the food of the Indian subcontinent, or of China and the Middle East, or of West and East Africa, of Thailand and Japan and Poland and all other points of the compass, cooked by people schooled from birth in its intricacies, you should give thanks for immigration. You should give thanks to people like Imad Alarnab, some of whom have risked their lives to be here. I know this is all bloody obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be said.
Jay Rayner’s most recent review touches on the topic:
It was good to see Rayner back on Sunday after a few weeks absence for hip replacement surgery. Hopefully as he recovers further, he’ll again be venturing out of the capital from time to time.
A common misconception is that the fish is square when in fact it is rectangular. 
Is this in reference to fish fingers? They have those in Texas? Or does this concern some other type of equiangular cuboid seafood product? 
I don’t recall a great deal of 20th century history when I was in secondary school either. Partly that might be the system in early '80s Scotland, where some of that was farmed out to Modern Studies, and partly my own indifferent record as a student of either, and the ‘kindness’ of subsequent memory. There are some subjects that are best taught as early as possible, notably language, but I don’t feel that history, especially construed as dry lists of whimsically or indeed politically chosen facts out of meaningful context to poorly motivated students is one of them.
I do recall some medieval history featuring, the Reformation, and as the Proclaimers put it:
In Scotland’s story I read that they came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
So that’s a common enough trope that it can no just be referenced in popular culture, but indeed rather subverted or nuanced, as that song does.
While leave/remain seems to be a totemic issue that serves as a handy shorthand, indeed in a similar way as “hang’em and flog’em” used to be, it puzzles me if it’s actually a good statistical predictor of anything very much. Leave seem to have been sold on the basis of any number of contradictions: freebooting global capitalism and of protectionist ‘economic nationalism’. Fairer treatment of non-EU immigrants, vs send 'em all home.
Mind you, I did see a covid-‘skeptic’ – as they might call themselves… quite incorrectly – demanding that they ‘bring back the treason act’ for people they dislike. So don’t discount capital punishment – or really, arbitrarily lethal vengeance as an ongoing theme. And indeed, you can connect the two: the Convention of Human Rights which forbids capital punishment may have been largely authored by British Tories, but is now seen as another shorthand for Evil European Tyranny in some quarters.
What exactly is said rule, and more to the point, how does it work in practice? One regular contributor not only has anti anti-EU avatar, but a tax-complainer profile name. That’s effectively not merely introducing politics onto the site, but into every thread they happen to post in, regardless of purported content.
I’m sorta imagining it’s a bit like the “no religion or politics!” sign in a pub. Often winked at, until such time as it’s causing fights in the carpark.
I can thoroughly recommend “Brexitland” by Maria Sobolewska as a fairly academic, but very interesting, look at the subject. It’s main thrust is how the cultural divisions in the UK (mainly England though) feeds differing “world views” on a number of subjects also led to how folk voted in the referendum. Lots of info from polling info over the last couple of decades or so.
As for the “no politics” rule, I can’t recall any detail of the rule. But moderators will appear on threads from tiime to time and issue a yellow card to transgressors.
We have to stay ahead of the yellow card. It’s the red card to be feared.
I’m hoping that Brexit and the outreach from both the previous and current US administration will increase the availability of British lamb in the US. American lamb simply does not measure up.
On the other hand, recognizing that there are some brilliant UK cheeses, will Wisconsin cheeses get a toehold in the UK with a more balanced playing field than before?
Those sorts of things will definitely be traceable to Brexit. I stand fast on the opinion that the original linked article is blaming Brexit for ramifications the entire world, not subject to Brexit, are similarly suffering. The current US administration has declared what is tantamount to open borders and hospitality still can’t fill jobs.
I’d hope so. Cheese lovers of the world must unite - we have nothing to lose but our Chaumes.
Actually I don’t think I’ve ever had a Wisconsin cheese. But I have eaten several absolute crackers from Vermont.
