5 ms·

Who killed the great British curry house? (2017)

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
I couldn't understand why an article (that I posted) about the decline in popularity of British curry houses would be flagged until I read the comments and realised what an idiot I was to not see the opportunity for a political flamewar over a bit of takeaway. Good job HN. Next time, let's make toilet paper orientation an issue of identity politics.
paxys 3y ago
> In fact, Khan was one of many curry house owners who backed Brexit in 2016, in the hope that exiting the EU would bring more favourable terms for south Asian immigrants. The president of the BCA, Pasha Khandaker, explicitly urged the association’s 4,000 members to vote leave, while the then employment minister, Priti Patel, told British Asian voters that by voting leave, they could “save our curry houses and join the rest of the world”. This part is hilarious and telling. I will never understand how politicians so easily get people to vote against their own interests.
- DC-3 3y ago
  Was it wrong? As I understand, South Asian immigration to the UK has increased since Brexit.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Yes it was wrong, and the article being discussed points out exactly why.
  - Aromasin 3y ago
    See quote from article: > ... Since the Brexit vote and the subsequent collapse of the pound, independent food outlets of all kinds have been hurt by rises in rents, rates and food prices. Meanwhile, in families that run curry houses younger generations have moved away from catering to more lucrative jobs in medicine or tech. So long as there was a ready supply of new onion choppers from Asia, the exodus of upwardly mobile offspring did not affect curry houses too much. The real blow came when a harsh new politics of immigration came in, which made it harder for skilled south Asian chefs to work in the country, just as the wider British public were changing the ways in which they consumed curry... > ... It is now dawning that under Theresa May’s government, the prospect of more Bangladeshi chefs being granted work visas is more distant than ever. A law that came into effect in April 2016 states that a skilled chef from south Asia must earn £35,000 or more a year, after deductions for accommodation and meals, to come work in a British restaurant that also offers a takeaway service. (The figure is only slightly lower for restaurants without takeaways.) Lord Bilimoria, the entrepreneur behind Cobra beer, is part of an all-party parliamentary group lobbying to reverse the law, which he calls “ridiculous” and “discriminatory”. No ordinary curry chef earns £35,000 (the industry average is £22-25,000 but the cooks who marinate lamb chops and mix raita get less)... In short, while axing immigration from the EU we also made it impossible for any working class migrant outside the EU to cross our borders. I'm sure all these worker shortages in agriculture/industry/hospitality/services/healthcare/construction are doing wonders for our nations' economic growth...
    - DC-3 3y ago
      This article is six years old, published only a year after the Brexit vote. Since then non-EU migration has risen dramatically; now outnumbering immigration from inside the EU by a ratio of about 8:1. Student visas provide an entryway to hundreds of thousands without the need to satisfy income requirements. I suspect that if there is a challenge facing curryhouses it is not immigration. Maybe a more atomised society which prefers deliveroo to eating out on the cheap and regular is more to blame.
      - n4r9 3y ago
        Non-EU migration has gone up, but that's a very broad stroke to apply. In my experience there has been a marked increase in the number of South Asian tech workers. Potentially the UK is in fact skimming skilled labour from countries that could really use some domestic development. It's worth noting that: * A great majority of the increase in work visas comes from African rather than South Asian countries * Long-term work visas are generally given for ICT or "skilled" work * "Skilled" work has a salary floor of around £26k * A curry chef's salary averages around £25k Sources: * https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2022/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-work https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-... * https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa * https://www.checkasalary.co.uk/salary/curry-chef-england https://www.checkasalary.co.uk/salary/curry-chef-england * https://www.statista.com/statistics/1241587/indian-population-in-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1241587/indian-populatio...
        rhaway84773 3y ago
        And either way the lede is being buried here. The Brexit leaders were just going around lying and telling everyone what they wanted to hear. The broader public was being told immigration would be reduced (now that’s not happening, they’re trying to shift the focus to “small boats” but polls are showing that’s clearly not working). Curry shop owners were told it would increase immigration to the people they wanted. But the only reason we know this because it’s an in depth article about curry shops. So we found this out coincidentally. It’s likely that there’s a whole bunch of other industries that were also told XYZ type of immigration would be increased even if overall immigration was decreased. As it turns out, the majority of those claims will turn out to be lies, and the ones that are true are coincidentally true. This is the fundamental scam underlying Brexit. There was no plan and as a result everyone was being told whatever they wanted would be delivered through Brexit.
  - wrp 3y ago
    It would be helpful here to have an explanation of how this story fits with the actual increase of immigration since Brexit.
- gettodachoppa 3y ago
  Why do you act like it's a given that it's in a British citizen's interest to increase immigration? This goes for British citizens of South Asian descent. What have they got to gain? I'm always surprised to see people with this "we need endless immigration or you won't have diverse restaurants" mentality. And it's always coming from the most privileged people in society, and always condescendingly talking down to people who don't vote like they do. (i.e. people like Guardian writers and you)
  - floren 3y ago
    "Vote against their own interests" almost always means "vote contrary to my preferences, the imbeciles".
    - swores 3y ago
      Nonsense. It means people voting for policies that they think will be positive for their lives but actually are negative for them. Which is a very common occurrence, regardless of your apparently disliking people pointing it out.
    - krisoft 3y ago
      Maybe, but not in this case. In this case the person in question was promised something ("more favourable terms for south Asian immigrants"). He voted accordingly. His side of the vote won. And he got the exact opposite as a result.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Rtfa. Restaurant owners voted for brexit in the hopes that it would help them import more cheap labor. Surprise – the exact opposite happened.
    - adammarples 3y ago
      Immigration to Britain has been at record highs since brexit, particularly non EU immigration. It seems they were exactly right on the money.
logifail 3y ago
> Since the Brexit vote and the subsequent collapse of the pound Is there any kind of agreed definition of "collapse"? Currencies rise, currencies fall. The GBPEUR rate today (1.15) appears to be almost exactly the same as it was in early July 2013, almost ten whole years ago.
- nmcfarl 3y ago
  The GBP USD rate went from 1.6245 on Jan 1 2013 to 1.25 today - which is a drop. Perhaps this is what is being focused on. But your comment is dead on - this doesn’t feel like a collapse it feels like currency fluctuations, at least from the outside.
  - purpleflame1257 3y ago
    Some amount of that is also due to the strength of the USD. The Euro was trading higher then as well.
    - twixfel 3y ago
      That came after the brexit vote. We are talking about the crash in the value after the Brexit vote.
      - purpleflame1257 3y ago
        The ancestor comments was giving the GBP/USD rate in 2013. At that time the Euro was worth about 1.30. Now it is about 1.05 My claim is therefore that the "collapse" in the value of the pound is actually instead a rise in the value of the dollar.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        I think the better question is, why are we talking about a short term fluctuation that happened years ago and has since corrected itself?
- NeoTar 3y ago
postultimate 3y ago
[flagged]
- MrMan 3y ago
  [dead]

I couldn't understand why an article (that I posted) about the decline in popularity of British curry houses would be flagged until I read the comments and realised what an idiot I was to not see the opportunity for a political flamewar over a bit of takeaway. Good job HN. Next time, let's make toilet paper orientation an issue of identity politics.

paxys 3y ago

> In fact, Khan was one of many curry house owners who backed Brexit in 2016, in the hope that exiting the EU would bring more favourable terms for south Asian immigrants. The president of the BCA, Pasha Khandaker, explicitly urged the association’s 4,000 members to vote leave, while the then employment minister, Priti Patel, told British Asian voters that by voting leave, they could “save our curry houses and join the rest of the world”. This part is hilarious and telling. I will never understand how politicians so easily get people to vote against their own interests.

DC-3 3y ago
Was it wrong? As I understand, South Asian immigration to the UK has increased since Brexit.
- paxys 3y ago
  Yes it was wrong, and the article being discussed points out exactly why.
- Aromasin 3y ago
  See quote from article: > ... Since the Brexit vote and the subsequent collapse of the pound, independent food outlets of all kinds have been hurt by rises in rents, rates and food prices. Meanwhile, in families that run curry houses younger generations have moved away from catering to more lucrative jobs in medicine or tech. So long as there was a ready supply of new onion choppers from Asia, the exodus of upwardly mobile offspring did not affect curry houses too much. The real blow came when a harsh new politics of immigration came in, which made it harder for skilled south Asian chefs to work in the country, just as the wider British public were changing the ways in which they consumed curry... > ... It is now dawning that under Theresa May’s government, the prospect of more Bangladeshi chefs being granted work visas is more distant than ever. A law that came into effect in April 2016 states that a skilled chef from south Asia must earn £35,000 or more a year, after deductions for accommodation and meals, to come work in a British restaurant that also offers a takeaway service. (The figure is only slightly lower for restaurants without takeaways.) Lord Bilimoria, the entrepreneur behind Cobra beer, is part of an all-party parliamentary group lobbying to reverse the law, which he calls “ridiculous” and “discriminatory”. No ordinary curry chef earns £35,000 (the industry average is £22-25,000 but the cooks who marinate lamb chops and mix raita get less)... In short, while axing immigration from the EU we also made it impossible for any working class migrant outside the EU to cross our borders. I'm sure all these worker shortages in agriculture/industry/hospitality/services/healthcare/construction are doing wonders for our nations' economic growth...
  - DC-3 3y ago
    This article is six years old, published only a year after the Brexit vote. Since then non-EU migration has risen dramatically; now outnumbering immigration from inside the EU by a ratio of about 8:1. Student visas provide an entryway to hundreds of thousands without the need to satisfy income requirements. I suspect that if there is a challenge facing curryhouses it is not immigration. Maybe a more atomised society which prefers deliveroo to eating out on the cheap and regular is more to blame.
    - n4r9 3y ago
      Non-EU migration has gone up, but that's a very broad stroke to apply. In my experience there has been a marked increase in the number of South Asian tech workers. Potentially the UK is in fact skimming skilled labour from countries that could really use some domestic development. It's worth noting that: * A great majority of the increase in work visas comes from African rather than South Asian countries * Long-term work visas are generally given for ICT or "skilled" work * "Skilled" work has a salary floor of around £26k * A curry chef's salary averages around £25k Sources: * https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2022/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-work https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-... * https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa * https://www.checkasalary.co.uk/salary/curry-chef-england https://www.checkasalary.co.uk/salary/curry-chef-england * https://www.statista.com/statistics/1241587/indian-population-in-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1241587/indian-populatio...
      - rhaway84773 3y ago
        And either way the lede is being buried here. The Brexit leaders were just going around lying and telling everyone what they wanted to hear. The broader public was being told immigration would be reduced (now that’s not happening, they’re trying to shift the focus to “small boats” but polls are showing that’s clearly not working). Curry shop owners were told it would increase immigration to the people they wanted. But the only reason we know this because it’s an in depth article about curry shops. So we found this out coincidentally. It’s likely that there’s a whole bunch of other industries that were also told XYZ type of immigration would be increased even if overall immigration was decreased. As it turns out, the majority of those claims will turn out to be lies, and the ones that are true are coincidentally true. This is the fundamental scam underlying Brexit. There was no plan and as a result everyone was being told whatever they wanted would be delivered through Brexit.
- wrp 3y ago
  It would be helpful here to have an explanation of how this story fits with the actual increase of immigration since Brexit.
gettodachoppa 3y ago
Why do you act like it's a given that it's in a British citizen's interest to increase immigration? This goes for British citizens of South Asian descent. What have they got to gain? I'm always surprised to see people with this "we need endless immigration or you won't have diverse restaurants" mentality. And it's always coming from the most privileged people in society, and always condescendingly talking down to people who don't vote like they do. (i.e. people like Guardian writers and you)
- floren 3y ago
  "Vote against their own interests" almost always means "vote contrary to my preferences, the imbeciles".
  - swores 3y ago
    Nonsense. It means people voting for policies that they think will be positive for their lives but actually are negative for them. Which is a very common occurrence, regardless of your apparently disliking people pointing it out.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    Maybe, but not in this case. In this case the person in question was promised something ("more favourable terms for south Asian immigrants"). He voted accordingly. His side of the vote won. And he got the exact opposite as a result.
- paxys 3y ago
  Rtfa. Restaurant owners voted for brexit in the hopes that it would help them import more cheap labor. Surprise – the exact opposite happened.
  - adammarples 3y ago
    Immigration to Britain has been at record highs since brexit, particularly non EU immigration. It seems they were exactly right on the money.

logifail 3y ago

> Since the Brexit vote and the subsequent collapse of the pound Is there any kind of agreed definition of "collapse"? Currencies rise, currencies fall. The GBPEUR rate today (1.15) appears to be almost exactly the same as it was in early July 2013, almost ten whole years ago.

nmcfarl 3y ago
The GBP USD rate went from 1.6245 on Jan 1 2013 to 1.25 today - which is a drop. Perhaps this is what is being focused on. But your comment is dead on - this doesn’t feel like a collapse it feels like currency fluctuations, at least from the outside.
- purpleflame1257 3y ago
  Some amount of that is also due to the strength of the USD. The Euro was trading higher then as well.
  - twixfel 3y ago
    That came after the brexit vote. We are talking about the crash in the value after the Brexit vote.
    - purpleflame1257 3y ago
      The ancestor comments was giving the GBP/USD rate in 2013. At that time the Euro was worth about 1.30. Now it is about 1.05 My claim is therefore that the "collapse" in the value of the pound is actually instead a rise in the value of the dollar.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      I think the better question is, why are we talking about a short term fluctuation that happened years ago and has since corrected itself?
NeoTar 3y ago

postultimate 3y ago

[flagged]

MrMan 3y ago
[dead]