johnnybangkok

12 hours ago, kingdong said:

then try reading the whole sentence instead of taking a small part of it and taking it out of context.suppose it would be safe to assume you didn,t get very far at school.

Says the man struggling to put a grammatically correct sentence together.

13 hours ago, kingdong said:

ITS THE REMAINERS DESTROYING OUR PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY,THATS MY POINT."legally it was an advisory"oh please play another record,so if remain had won they,d have been ok with "peoples votes" farage taking parliament through the legal process,etc etc?

My point regarding referendums was a statement of fact, not an opinion.

Referendums in the United Kingdom are occasionally held at a national, regional or local level. National referendums can be permitted by an Act of Parliament and regulated through the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, but they are by tradition extremely rare due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty meaning that they cannot be constitutionally binding on either the Government or Parliament, although they usually have a persuasive political effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_the_United_Kingdom

1 hour ago, billd766 said:

IMHO many of the MPs now sitting in parliament, Including those who are threatened with a 3 line whip and those who may be de-selected by the Tory party, may well be de-selected by their own constituency. I think a number of Labour MPs could well be in the same boat.

Since we cannot rely on your crystal ball at this stage, it looks like we are just going to have to go along with a parliamentary system that's been in existence since 1215 and get these pesky MP's to continue doing their job. 

And for people who constantly go on about Brexit being the 'democratic will of the people', you lot sure are selective in what parts of the democratic process you want. It's not a Woolworth's pick and mix; you don't get to choose which parts you like and which parts you don't. 

2 hours ago, billd766 said:

No, the UK did NOT have a Brexit deal at all or it would have been ratified by parliament, as it was it was rejected 3 times by the same parliament that you think is non-democratic and undermines democracy in the UK.

 

Democracy is accepting that you side didn't win and moving on. What is undermining our Democracy in failing to accept what the majority who voted to leave and saying that they were wrong and had no idea what they voted for.

 

I voted to leave and having listened to both sides I made my own mind up and ignored all the propaganda from BOTH sides as both sides lied.

I don’t think and didn’t say “ is non-democratic and undermines democracy in the UK”.  I’m saying literally the reverse. But there is a system in the UK that determines the result not from referendums but by parliamentary democracy. It’s what stops you having to vote on matters that confuse, overwhelm and for which you have little but an emotional attachment to. It’s why we vote politicians in. 

You say you listened but did you really? Did you think it was going to be a no- deal Brexit? Really? Honestly. Regardless of that, did you think that we had to question the very aspect of how we govern? The fundamentals of how the UK has existed for hundreds of years is now under question because BoJo wants to try and force through an idea that does not have parliamentary approval. 

Many times in the past democracy been usurped by the ideals of a movement or individual. 

None if them have worked out particularly well. Let’s not copy the mistakes of the past. 

10 minutes ago, vogie said:

This is going to be my last post to you, I am beginning to get repetitive stress in my middle finger.

 

Parliament passed a bill to allow the electorate to vote on whether to leave the EU or not.

The electorate voted and parliament listened to the electorates decision and decided to go with what they voted for, are you still with me?

When parliament triggered Art50 it made it law to leave the EU, ok so far?

And here's the rub, parliamentary democracy can only work if the MPs are being democratic, and unless you are an eidelweiss living on the top of Mount Everest you surely would see the failings of our democratic process.

This whole debate is not about anything you have mentioned. It’s about whether parliamentary democracy should be ignored because it doesn’t suit a Brexit agenda. 

I agree you should no longer debate a point you have no chance of winning. 

1 minute ago, vogie said:

Parliament is only a building, the MPs are supposed to be the ones that are sworn to uphold the tradition of democracy. Well with your hand on your heart can you possibly say they are doing this. 

You don't ask a country for their opinion with a promise of implimenting that decision then when they get the results back, throw them in the bin,, that is certainly not democracy.

You had a Brexit deal:- you just didn’t like it because it wasn’t the milk and honey you were promised. There was never going to be a great deal from the EU were you got to “keep the best bits” (actually promised by BoJo) now when BoJo is trying to force a result that undermines our democracy you now think that’s a fair price to pay. 

I don’t. 

51 minutes ago, vogie said:

How can you possibly defend democracy when we don't have it in the first place, do you think John Bercow is democratic, do you think the Labour Party is being democratic by voting againgst anything put in front of them, the SNP have a similar agenda with voting againgst anything put in front of them.

Do I think this rabble is democratic that is sitting in parliament now, no I don't. 

Do I think the will of the people should be honoured, yes I do.

It would appear that the wishes of the electorate is being by passed, so how ever Boris achieves his goal I care not one jot. 

Yes I do believe there is and will always be democracy in the uk. You can wish it differently, that is your prerogative, but it doesn’t change the facts. The UK is not governed by referendum. It has a long history of parliamentary democracy that says how things can/cannot be done. To tide roughshod over that is an affront to the very ideals we hold dear. To say otherwise is disingenuous at best, downright anarchy at worst.  

46 minutes ago, vogie said:

"It is governed by parliamentary democracy" well it appears to me it is not working is it, for 3 years now we have been waiting for parliament to sort this out, all they are bothered about is their over-inflated egos. How long do you think we should kick the can down the road for, extending Art50 every 6 months is not going to achieve anything. We have finally got someone who is a leader and is willing to carry out the wishes of the British electorate, if Boris can do that by any trick in the book that will be fine by most folk. Do not forget our MPs have had a chance to vote for a deal, they chose not to, because they thought they were clever and would get the referendum result overturned. Democracy must be delivered.

So let me get this straight. You’re argument for democracy is to bypass hundreds of years of democracy? Now that’s some argument. 

Whether you like it or not, the UK has worked very well as a parliamentary democracy for hundreds of years and you just cannot ignore it because you feel “it’s not working”. In there lies a constitutional crisis that would undermine the very foundations of what makes Britain great. 

5 minutes ago, vogie said:

Not overturn it or not me anyway( or I didn't until Boris played this despicable card) I want to underline it with another referendum and a fair one where 16 and 17 years old can Vote on there future where we are free from Cambridge Analytica and Russian twitter bots or whatever they are called.

 

You cannot have referendum after referendum because the result didn't go the way we would have wanted. As for wanting 16 and 17 year olds being allowed to vote, why stop there, get it down to 10 year olds. There must be a reason why the voting age is the way it is, do you honestly think that youngsters of that age are mature enough to make a decision on behalf of the country?

I think the skullduggery was the same on both sides, Cameron spending £9 million of tax payers money on propaganda leaflets. But we are were we are now, it is tomorrow that counts.

 

The majority of British people don't want this they don't want to be ruined and what are the Brexit Mob afraid of you know you will lose another referendum that's the beauty of democracy you can change your mind.

 

"The majority of British people don't want this they don't want to be ruined" that is over exaggeration at its finest, there may slight hiccups for a while, or maybe not, we are in unchartered waters, nobody knows.

There is no indication that the electorate have changed their minds and the only accurate statistics we have is the referendum result.

I think it would be safe to say though, is that most people have had enough of the whole debacle and just want it to be put to bed as soon as possible preferable with a fair deal, but seeing that looks highly unlikely it only leaves no-deal.

The UK is not governed by referendums.; it is governed by parliamentary democracy. You can argue that Brexit is the will of the people but you cannot argue that parliamentary democracy is to be ignored in favour of a referendum.  Boris is attempting to bypass parliamentary democracy to force through a highly unpopular no-deal Brexit. That is where the constitutional crisis is coming from and will go more to undermine UK democracy than any new referendum ever will.   

This is what people are rightly protesting and should be something we all, Remainers and Leavers alike, get behind. 

11 hours ago, 7by7 said:

@yogi100, @<deleted> dasterdly, et al,

 

Nostalgic essays notwithstanding, the fact is that most British workers are less willing to be seasonal, migrant workers on the land than they used to be.

 

Not because they are lazy, but because they want more secure, permanent, better paid employment close to home.

 

Of course, migrant farm labour is nothing new; from Irish workers as far back as the 14th century to workers from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) which was introduced in 1945 as British and Irish workers left the land for more permanent work elsewhere. SAWS was abolished in 2013 due to the increased availability of EU workers.

 

Yes, families from the big cities did travel en masse to do fruit picking, hop picking etc. as their summer 'holiday' but this wasn't stopped by child labour laws, which date back to the 19th century, but mainly by cheap foreign travel when the attractions of a beach holiday in Spain outweighed those of picking hops in Kent!

 

I have previously provided a link to page after page of job adverts for agricultural workers, most paying well above minimum wage.  

 

It's the same in the building trade. I visit construction sites, big and small, as part of my work. Yes, there are eastern European workers on most sites; but lots of British ones as well. Search for 'Building Labouring Jobs' and you will get page after page of results. Even more if you search for a specific trade!

 

None of which are paying starvation wages either! I'm currently in West Yorkshire and my search brought up vacancies here: £12+ per hour or £100+ a day is not unusual for a labourer, £18+ per hour or £150+ per day for bricklayers. Have a look at the rates offered in London, they're even higher!

 

Care homes are another sector which relies heavily on migrant, often EU national, workers. This time you don't have to do a Google search, just drive past any care home anywhere; they're all advertising for staff. If you do enquire, they also usually pay above minimum wage.

 

So can a Brexiteer explain how EU workers are taking the jobs of British workers and driving wages down; the facts show a completely different story.

 

 

 

 

Because Brexit fans don't do facts as facts often directly contradict their myopic world view.

They 'feel' that they are losing their Britishness (whatever that is) and that there's too many foreigners 'taking their jobs'. It's been a method used by politicians forever (and is currently quite popular with Trump and his merry band of cult followers). It's used quite as often as it is because it works so well; get the working man to blame the foreigners for all the problems and perhaps they won't look too closely at who is creating the real problems.

No point in trying to show them this. They simply won't listen   

1 hour ago, Forethat said:

1. Sovereignty

2. EU Law

3. EU Federalist extremism

4. The € disaster

5. Immigration

1. Never lost it. 

2. EU law has done more good for the man on the street than harm. Whether it be the Working Time Directive, women’s rights, environmental law, minimum wages again the myth of EU law being bad just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. 

3. Right wing made up nonsense. 

4. How is a disaster? It’s held fairly strong against the dollar and anyway the uk doesn’t use it. 

5. The real reason (although I did say 5 reasons without talking about immigration).  

3 minutes ago, vogie said:

Nobody is interested in your reasons for staying in the EU, there are 17.4 million reasons for leaving, it's called democracy.

Deflection. 

You might not be interested in my reasons but that wasn't the question was it.

Come on Brexit brigade, 5 good reasons for leaving the EU?

22 minutes ago, transam said:

What a load of tosh, and why is it folk like you bring out the "racist card" when you are stumped...?

It is very childish, especially when most posting here have Asian families...

Bet the other "racist" accuser will be along soon, can't wait...????

Go on then. Tell me about the economic benefits of all this? Just give me 5 good reasons that don't include 'controlling our own borders' or immigration for a no-deal Brexit? 

I can certainly give you 5 good reasons for staying in the EU.

7 hours ago, luckyluke said:

Correct. 

In my opinion the word "Bigot" should been applied here, according to the following :

 

Definition of bigot. : a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (in this particularly situation, an ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

I would  go with xenophobic.

56 minutes ago, yogi100 said:

No, let 'em do those jobs. Many of us have had jobs where we've broken the ice on puddles at daybreak, it's no big deal. Although I doubt many would be getting up to go picking spuds and cabbages at 4 am or soon after it. They would not be able to see what they're doing at that time, it's still dark.

 

The agricultural workers can still come and work on the farms and wherever else they may be needed but on a seasonal basis. As long as it's done on a selective basis and they don't put our own people out of work. Just like it's done in Thailand.

 

There's no call for them to be given council housing, citizenship and the associated benefits that go with it.

 

I remember hop and fruit picking in Kent back when I was a boy and when the season was over we went back home to London. The Romanians and Poles etc can do the same. What would be wrong with that.

 

Many of those 8.7 million I mentioned are often able bodied people who have conned the benefit system into believing they are unfit for work. We all know such people if we live in the real world.

 

They have bad backs, depression, mild arthritis and other ailments that can't be disproved. That's why there are only 1.4 million registered as unemployed.

 

When Blair was PM in the early years of this century folk who went to sign on as unemployed were urged to 'go on the sick'.

 

Unfortunately those people now no longer have a work ethic and it would now take a stick of dynamite to blow them out of their street doors and into a job that would give them a degree of self respect and accomplishment.

 

Claiming they had a bad back or suffering from stress usually did the trick. Such tactics encouraged by the govt were reflected in the unemployment figures and made the govt look as if it was doing a first rate job. Just like now in 2019.

 

Many of those claimants are still getting their benefits. It's possible to get 130 - 300 quid a week plus your rent and council tax paid. Few people are going to turn their noses up at such good fortune and the comfortable life of Riley it affords to go out and pick brussels sprouts in the perishing cold at 4 o'clock in the morning.

 

But there again some manual workers who are now in their 50s and 60s have developed injuries that genuinely prevent them performing strenuous tasks that their previous occupation demanded.

 

Such a state of affairs is a considerable strain on a nation's finances. It's up to the politicians to rectify matters just like it's their job to follow our instructions and get us out of the EU as quickly as possible.

 

 

TJ: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!

MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

EI: Well when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

TJ: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

MP: Cardboard box?

TJ: Aye.

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TJ: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

8 hours ago, mania said:

I know that sounds logical but...........

 

I am a sport/hobby nut & spend much $$$  on my hobby.

I am in the US & my main 3 vendors I buy from are all in the UK.

 

I do not know how they do it but their prices are so much better that with delivery ( which many times is free)

are still better than what I can buy online here including places like Amazon etc Even if they use Royal Mail>USPS or DHL/UPS/FedEx etc.

 

So if they can ship my things (which are not tiny) either free or very cheaply as they do then I have to wonder if what you say is factual

Lastly remember I am buying small quantities of items for personal use. If anything the cost of shipping should be much less in bulk

 

You've answered your own question with 'If anything the cost of shipping should be much less in bulk'. I'm unsure of what you are buying but whoever you are buying from obviously has your product produced en masse and therefore has the benefit of producing large quantities of it, therefore making it cheaper to export. Most regular exporters/importers negotiate their shipping costs on an annual agreement so if they can guarantee a certain quantity, they can get a good price and even beat local competition. Also to note is you are talking about non-perishables whereas my comment was more aimed at perishables such as fruit, vegetables and the likes. Current EU trade rules allow for friction-less borders meaning an orange grown in Spain can be shipped to the UK that same day. This will not be the case for the US as apart from the rules needing to be set up, you're talking an awful lot longer in transport time and the difficulties and expenses of keeping them fresh without pumping them full of chemicals.

I'm no logistic expert but I'm sure someone on this forum is and can probably explain this better than I have.