The United Kingdom is better off leaving the EU.

~ I must offer the most sincere apologies for forfeiting the previous round, although much of the argument was written, preoccupations prevented me from finishing and publishing the final piece. I should think it's best we continue the debate. 1. Opening Statement Laissez-faire capitalism did not lead to the 2008 Wall Street Crash. My opponent has confused de facto corporatism with laissez-faire capitalism. How is the federal reserve system - supposedly a central regulatory banking institution, but in reality a lobbyist facade to promote self-regulation - an artefact of a laissez-faire economic system? Such a banking system is in direct violation of laissez-faire tenets - that the state implements law, not corporations. My opponent begins to list the EU's achievements, which I shall shortly refute: Firstly, international trade is promoted by trade agreements not political unions. Secondly, the EU, in terms of climate reform, has only shifted industry to developing countries by levying unnecessary tax, discouraging innovations and distorting the free market. The UN deployed one of its largest peacekeeping missions there, and thus they were largely responsible for the resolution in 2013. Very few articles of the conflict even acknowledge EU involvement, if you'd like some idea of how much impact the EU had during the crises. 2. Democratic Deficit It's a bit of a struggle to determine my opponents actual position on this issue, given that he opens his rebuttal by vilifying and berating the nature of democracy, and goes attributing the rise of Nazism to proportional representation. And then shortly after this anti-democracy point he proceeds to argue that the European Commission is democratic, only moments later to backtrack and start conceding that 'the system is not perfect' and needs reform. His first argument is dependent on the idea that pure democracy, is not able to act effectively, and he bases this argument on a historical event, but fails to provide proper context. The proportional representation voting system is not intrinsically doomed to dictatorship as the opponent suggests. In fact, the Nazi takeover of Germany was permitted through a loophole in the Weimar Constitution (Article 48), which allowed a certain Adolf Hitler to pass legislation without vote of parliament. It was not democracy, as the opponent suggests, that resulted in extremism, but the very opposite: democratic deficit. It's highly unlikely my opponent believes the parliament in Australia, which currently uses a proportional representation system, is wildly ineffective or bound for a Nazi takeover. I'll assume that was a lapse in logic, and my opponent is not promoting fascism to combat extremism. In the previous argument, it was noted that the president of the European Commission is elected undemocratically, with the European Council proposing a candidates to be voted on by the European Parliament, to which the opponent responded 'How is the European Parliament, elected by the people, having the power to vote in the president undemocratic? This seems to be a blatant contradiction'. My opponent seems to misunderstand the concept of contradiction. The point made, was that the European Commission lack democratic legitimacy because a candidate is 'approved' the European Council. We might ask the opponent if he believes the umbrella revolution in Hong Kong is an unjustified affair, and if the people should not expect to be able to vote for a non-establishment approved candidates. My opponent, also remarks that I 'refer to the European Commission as a group of unelected bureaucrats', which, in any way you look at it, still holds true. Not a single European voter posted a ballot to let these bureaucrats run Europe, even though the Commission is the only institution that matters. This is simply unacceptable, and suggestions that an organisation like the EU could ever be properly reformed are naive at best, when every directive has been subject to an unnerving ratchet effect and every has treaty lead to a more and more centralized Europe, removing further powers from nation states, without regard to democracy. The point still stands strong; the EU is a structurally undemocratic political union, that the British public never voted to be in, and thus the interests of the British people are not properly represented within it. 3. Benefits of the Single Market Free markets are wonderful. They promote competition, innovation and are arguably one of humanities greatest achievements. Unfortunately, being a member of the EU, Britain has not been able to pursue a free single market. In fact, it's ludicrous to suggest that a single market is only made possible with a political union, such as the EU. My opponent might suggest that the EU would withhold such an agreement in order to delay the UK's departure from the EU, but this statement would be downright naive and not supported by statistics, given that the UK imports much more from the EU than it exports. The Better Off Out campaign notes that: "In 2009 there was a trade deficit of "34.9bn; in 2011, it was nearly "50bn. In the very worst case scenario, if trade stopped with the EU, the United Kingdom would lose 3 million jobs which are dependent on trade with the EU. The EU however, would lose 4 millions jobs, so it would be nonsensical for them not to trade with their biggest customer. Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU must make a trade agreement with a country which leaves the EU." I enjoyed reading my opponent's thesis in favour a free, global market, I can't help but wonder if the opponent believes that the 3,600 new laws from the EU since 2010 have helped or hindered a free, global market. Increasingly, eurocrats are legislating on non-issues, banning any new innovation they don't warm to, and hurting production in all EU economies. It's this draconian legislation that leads to monopolies and lack of competition - the very of opposite of the free, global and competitive market my opponent advocates. The same legislation that has deterred numerous non-EU countries from considering free trade agreements with the EU. In fact, little Switzerland has more free trade deals than the EU, and the difference her and the United Kingdom is that she wasn't forced to signed away her sovereignty to Brussels in doing so. And so, if my opponent really believes in a free United Kingdom, trading with Europe and once again playing a role in world politics, I can safely say that leaving to EU will get you quite a bit closer to those aims. 4. Open Borders Leaving the EU may or not result in restrictions on the movement of labour. The United Kingdom might choose to leave it's borders open, and receive the supposed benefits of immigration, or the United Kingdom might implement a heavily restricted immigration policy in order to combat the supposed costs of immigration. Leaving the EU would guarantee nothing but that the United Kingdom would be able to choose and implement it's own immigration policy. The current free movement of labour prevents the United Kingdom from controlling the quantity and quality of immigration has already lead to numerous tragedies of Health Tourism, a Romanian Crime epidemic and high profile murderers who have been permitted to use the United Kingdom as a haven. This lazy approach to immigration has had significant impact on the wealth of the poorest in Britain through wage compression, while overall wages have gone up for the upper and middle class, for every 1% rise in the share of migrants in the UK-born working age population, there was 0.6% trimmed off the wages of the bottom 5% of earners and a 0.4% fall for the lowest 10%. In fact it can also be argued that the EU labour market has discriminated against non-EU workers with greater skills, simply based of race and nationality, given that a quality controlled immigration system would ensure that skilled working immigration can occur. This year 260,000 largely non-skilled workers have immigrated to a small country with already failing infrastructure and there is nothing the people can do about it as a member of the EU. 5. Social Benefits Free movement is addressed in the previous argument. The EU recently orchestrated a vile political coup d'etat within Ukraine, by toppling a democratically elected government and then instigating aggressive overtures from the IMF and/or World Bank. How is purposefully destabilising a democratic nation in order to play geopolitical war-games with Vladimir Putin, creating social benefits for the people of the EU. References: http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org... https://en.wikipedia.org...... https://en.wikipedia.org...... https://en.wikipedia.org...... https://en.wikipedia.org...... https://en.wikipedia.org... https://www.uktradeinfo.com... http://data.worldbank.org... http://data.worldbank.org... http://www.breitbart.com... http://www.ons.gov.uk... https://en.wikipedia.org... https://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.betteroffout.net... http://www.theguardian.com... http://www.neurope.eu... http://cream-migration.org... http://www.storyleak.com...