One British historian, who has written about the history of London, said aptly about how Britons feel about foreigners, which can be generalized to all people: "As long as foreigners are seen to bring money to the community, they are tolerated in Britain".

And this is true. Nobody hates the vast swarms of tourists as they bring money to the country, as they create jobs for the local population. Yet if the foreigners are seen to compete with the local population for jobs, immediately emerges a resentment against the foreigners which we call xenophobia (or racism, as that is so popular today). And worst of all, if foreigners seem to be literally stealing our wealth, it is likely we call them the occupiers, the enemy, and the young men are up in arms fighting them.

The historian thought that the English, or at least Londoners hadn't change much from the sixteenth century and from the times of the Evil May Day riots (in 1517), when the scum of the Earth foreigners were the hated Dutch. When times are bad, foreigners are the perfect culprit.

And this is true. Nobody hates the vast swarms of tourists as they bring money to the country, as they create jobs for the local population. Yet if the foreigners are seen to compete with the local population for jobs, immediately emerges a resentment against the foreigners which we call xenophobia — ssu

Tourists don't stay, and they also tend to be wealthy, respectful and support local businesses. Those who come and 'take our jobs' are the ones hated by the Farage mob. I see today Boris has marked out our lack of brickies, welders and butchers; and there are calls for the govt to lower the immigration restrictions for these occupations post-Brexit. Like all populists he's quite okay with contradicting his earlier views. There should already be some Brexiteers thinking: 'Hang on...'.

I see today Boris has marked out our lack of brickies, welders and butchers; and there are calls for the govt to lower the immigration restrictions for these occupations post-Brexit.

Yes and there are approx 120,000 vacancies in the social care sector and about 40,000 nursing vacancies, not to mention all the crops which need harvesting. Boris should be encouraging the million or three who are going to become unemployed to fill these roles. Plus they don't require a lot of training (with the exception of nurses).

Brexit is going to provide sufficient vacancies for all the unemployed we will have from Covid, genius!

The only problem is that most shop workers won't make good brickies or welders! As for butchers, I don't see why there is a shortage. Surely they're losing their retail businesses too.

Tourists don't stay, and they also tend to be wealthy, respectful and support local businesses. — Tim3003

And if they would not be so, people would be against them. You can just imagine if the those tourists wouldn't spend a dime, but on the contrary would be begging on the streets. It wouldn't matter if those beggars would just stay a while and be replaced with others. You could briefly notice this during the German unification when the border between the East and West collapsed. The Easterners were naturally interested to see West Germany, but weren't the typical wealthy tourist. They filled the tourist attractions but ate from their own meager lunchboxes and didn't spend as normal tourists for the simple reason as they came from a socialist country. The West German shopkeepers etc. weren't enthusiastic about it. Hence, Mexicans wouldn't tolerate American spring breakers, if those youngsters wouldn't create income. And neither the Spanish wouldn't tolerate northerners on their beaches if it wouldn't support the local economy.

I see today Boris has marked out our lack of brickies, welders and butchers; and there are calls for the govt to lower the immigration restrictions for these occupations post-Brexit. — Tim3003

Yes and there are approx 120,000 vacancies in the social care sector and about 40,000 nursing vacancies, not to mention all the crops which need harvesting. — Punshhh

Especially the health care sector is the area where the country with higher wages becomes a magnet for health care professionals as they are in a permanent shortage as the population gets older.

Also, the simple fact is that in a prosperous society there simply are jobs that people won't take. Especially here where there is a tight social security net and welfare state: you will get perpetual unemployment benefits, the state will pay your rent and hence provide housing. People will start calculating if it's really profitable to work in a crappy job and have less free time, yet have exactly basically same amount of money to spend. Fruit picking is a traditional example of this, as the job is too difficult for low priced robots to do.

And finally it is a fact that much needed professionals are sought after everywhere. And if I recall correctly, at least in the 1990's if you could show that you invested enough pounds in the UK, you got your permit to immigrate to the UK immediately no matter where you came. Money talks.

People will start calculating if it's really profitable to work in a crappy job and have less free time, yet have exactly basically same amount of money to spend. Fruit picking is a traditional example of this.

Yes, I see the problem there. In the UK though social security is so low that it won't have that effect. The problem is more likely going to be due the people just refusing to do a lot of these job, because they think it is beneath them, or they can't do a day's physical work.

Yesterday the EU rejected the UK request for cars with less than 50% of the parts in them being made in the UK, or the EU, to be classed as made in the UK, therefore being tariff free potentially when exported to the EU. Because the UK could become an offshore assembly hub for non EU parts, with open access to the EU markets. This is probably the death nail of the UK car industry (most of the parts involved are made in Japan, which has just agreed a trade deal with the EU).

Also today Ursula Von der Layen, formally announced that the EU is taking the UK to court for legislating to break the withdrawal agreement.

Happy daze.

If the EU would be truly a Federation and controlled by a singular entity that would drive the objectives of the EU itself, it would be worse. Luckily it really isn't the US of Europe.

If a member decides to leave and this is somehow accepted, then the logical response would make it as utterly devastating for the leaving member as possible. Hence in the UK example, the answer would have been to say to Scotland that is totally free to join the EU and it will be considered as a member state already with the only requirement of being that as a EU country it has to treat it's southern border as frontier of the EU in every way.

That would have sent a message to every member state that "If you leave us, we promise we will rip apart your country by luring the richest parts of your country into the EU". With Italy it would be the north, with Spain, Catalonia (of course!) and with Germany, lets say Bavaria.

Also a well functioning federation would nip right from the bud any secessionist or exiting-EU ideas as so crazy that the people saying those kind of things ought to be in a mental asylum. Or if not there, at least they are inherently racist, nativist, violent skinhead types and simply deranged evil people. After all, how many know that there's a Texas Nationalist Movement? The state has already been independent and was recognized by at least Belgium and Netherlands to be an independent country.

Of course this didn't happen as the EU is still a semi-loose union of independent nation states. And member being independent states means that there is few if any control of the EU over them in the domestic political arena. As nation states control the EU it was Spain that was utterly panicked about the possibility of Scotland waltzing into the EU and creating an example for Catalonia to continue. Hence the EU gave the Scottish Independence a cold response without any kind of contemplation of an independent Scotland continuing with the all the agreements of the EU-Britain, which was what the Scottish nationalists wanted.

And from this example you can notice, that the EU as a truly functioning "United States of Europe" would be a far sinister player than it is now.

I was wondering in what court the EU's legal action against the UK govt will be heard.. If it's the EU Court surely the UK can just say it no longer has jurisdiction as we've left the EU. If it's the UN Court its verdict might carry some weight..

With sovereign states court decisions are a minor issue, what the real issue is how other sovereign countries respond in things like trade policy etc.

Good example is to compare present Israel to Apartheid era South Africa. Once for US the Apartheid system came to be a more important factor than having a Western ally in the African continent, things changed dramatically. For the white ruling class it was more sound to do away with apartheid than face the sanctions. Yet some international court or even the UN general assembly taking a stance on Israel's occupation of territories doesn't matter as the US stands obediently with Israel and Western countries are eager to trade with Israel.

In any situation the UK won't face something like the South Africe faced even from the EU member states. For example for my puny little country the UK one of it's largest trading partners, hence the country has absolutely no desire of punishing the UK trade... we've already have had the burden of limiting our trade with our Eastern neighbor because of the events in Ukraine.

The UK is breaking international law, not EU law. The Withdrawal Agreement has the status of a treaty.

I've heard that the EU is seeking to prosecute the UK, for their intention to breach the contract of the withdrawal agreement, as a signal to the rest of the world that they stand by their commitments and expect their neighbour's who they do business with to do the same. That it is not making much difference in the negotiations, apart from indicating who threatened to renage on the commitments in the agreement and acted in a disingenuous manner, incase the talks breakdown and a blame game begins. The EU has noticed that the UK government has been spreading claims and rumours that the EU is behaving unreasonably, which is actually incorrect. So they are preparing for the blame game

My question remains: In what court will a judge(s) sit to hear this case?

Yes, it will be heard at the ECJ and Britain has agreed to abide by any decision of the court until 31st of December 2020 and for fours years thereafter. I couldn't say if it will be a judge who decides, but I expect so, as it it a court.

Almost unnoticed amid the Covid panic the trade deal talks deadline has passed with no agreement, and each side blaming the other for not moving. In their meeting the EU leaders did not exactly express confidence and optimism that the talks should keep going, but had no option but to agree to it. Is there now a mechanism for the EU to ratify a deal even if one is reached?
With von der Leyen now self-isolating it is surely obvious that the deadline should be delayed, but there's no way Boris will agree to that, so we'll presumably get a rushed conclusion and likely a flawed deal. Or no-deal..

This thing has been heading to 'no deal' since day one. Too many misunderstandings.

Johnson has said now that we are heading for an "Australia deal", code for no deal. It might be a handfisted attempt at brinkmanship, but sounds more like he is drifting away from seriously seeking a deal.

he is drifting away from seriously seeking a deal. — Punshhh

Assuming he ever was seriously seeking a deal.

Assuming he ever was seriously seeking a deal.

Quite, I do think he wanted a deal, but only on unreasonable terms. He always wanted to have his cake and eat it. So it's just as likely that he has been signalling to the EU that he doesn't want a deal in his actions. Namely breaking the commitments in the withdrawal agreement and spaffing any trust there was up the wall. By now the EU will regard him as an entirely unreliable, if not duplicitous negotiating partner.

A Downing st spokesman has said this evening, that the talks are over.

Finally.

A Downing st spokesman has said this evening, that the talks are over. — Punshhh

Officially over, yes. The 2 sides seem to have fixed positions and both are unwilling to move. But with 6 weeks still to go there is room for informal initiatives. It wouldn't surprise me if Boris is pushing it to the brink in order to maximise his own gain from miraculously pulling a last minute deal out of the fire. With the increasing hits he's taking over his Covid policies he's badly in need of a distraction. I bet he'd love to 'save Christmas' again..

Both Christmas's are going to fall over the precipice. It's a slow motion car crash. I'll get out my Tom Waites albums, (Clue, The Piano has been drinking)

Finally

Agreed.

It looks as though Johnson is totally cornered, it's like checkmate, there's no where for him to turn, now that Biden is president elect. Either he takes the country down with him with a no deal Brexit and no US trade deal, but temporarily saves face with his party. Or he capitulates and begs for a closer trade deal with the EU and betrays the Brexiters, splitting his party, but saves the country and paves the way for Starmer.

Which is it?

Interesting article on how the political class failed to rescue the Brexit debacle. To the stent that we now have looney government with absolute power trashing the country. Good job we haven't got a Trump to make it worse. Oh hang on that's what we've got, UK Trump, Johnson.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/who-killed-soft-brexit-eu-european-union-no-deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54925322

@Punshhh thoughts?

Rats leaving a sinking ship. He was the only brains in the whole outfit.