The United Kingdom is better off leaving the EU.

Democracy Deficit Regardless of any lack of democracy within the EU this is not a major concern and is not a vaid argument for Britain to leave the EU. My opponent has concentrated on picking apart the details of my aergument, but has failed to refute the point that no system that needs to act decicivly at times is a pure democracy. Whatever lack of fairness this may entail affects other EU members just asmuch as Britain and so Britain will not gain any huge international political power if it leaves the EU; In fact, it may even lose power as it is no longer part of a coalition that acts together. My opponent states 'every new treaty lead to a more and more centralized Europe', but fails to provide any evidence, and then claims that Britain acting independantly is a batter alternative without providing any reasons why.Single Market Neither Switzerland nor Norway were ever members of the EU. My point was that the EU would likely resrtict Britain's acess to the single market as a deterrant for other countries considering leaving the EU, as the European Union is built as an economic and political union, not just an economic union, and the EU wants to preserve that dual function. This also applies to the shared interests argument.As for legislation, as I already stated most of those legislations are a) necessary, b) would have been passed in the UK anyway, and c) Do not hinder free trade to such an extent that they would reduce Britain's International competitiveness.Open Borders I feel difficulty in replying to this section, seeing as my opponent's main sources included the Daily Mail and a blogsite. My opponent provides 'established statistics' (whatever that means), and as I read on in the source he provided I find the same source also states 'The figure of 28,000 is for the number of arrests made over five years from 2008 to 2012, not the number of people. One shoplifter can be arrested and re-arrested dozens of times and each one of those arrests counts towards this total.' As well as this, I am sure that my opponent could find an EU minority group within the UK that had a much lower crime rate than the UK citizens. These statistics mean nothing. My opponent provides evidence for EU immigration causing wage compression. I provide evidence against it (see references), where a study found that any wage compression caused by EU immigration is statistically insignificant.Political PowerBeing a member of the EU allows Britain to decisivly act on International issues as it shares foreign policies with virtually all member states, and if the policies disagree it allows a healthy, intelligent discussion to take place, definately a good thing for Britain and the world. ConclusionBurden of Doubt lies on my opponent; his task was to show that Britain would be better off leaving the EU and I do not believe he has decisivly proven that the case. The costs of Britain leaving the EU far outweigh any potential benefits (his main arguments rest on Britain gaining acess to the single market, definately not certain).Thanks for reading this debate, and please take the time to vote.Referenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org...http://blogs.channel4.com...https://ideas.repec.org...http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk...http://www.dartmouth.edu...http://www.bbc.co.uk...