> as far as I'm aware, they've never done anything to a bill that gave me cause to dislike them. That doesn't preclude their having done so though.

There are bigger questions than just whether the royals have done something that you personally don't like (or failed to do something that you would have liked them to have done). It is worth considering whether their power has legitimacy in a democracy (including whether they are illegitimately taking power away from the role of an elected head of state, who could veto bad legislation, for example), and whether there is sufficient scrutiny of their actions that we can feel confident that they really aren't acting against your interest without you knowing it. For further reading, I offer:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-roy...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/6-things-we-l...

> Given that our general elections are held against parties, there's 1. nomination of a party leader by party members and 2. election of a party by the population.

We are told that our general elections are about local candidates and not parties (as an excuse to avoid certain types of voting reform), but moreover I don't think that there is a requirement that parties have to let their entire membership have a say in who is selected as party leader. In any case, parties generally do not allow you to be a member of more than one at a time, so most of the UK population cannot influence your option 1, and parties generally don't win the support of the majority of the population, so most people are unhappy with the outcome of option 2 as well, even before the party has a change of leader mid-term.

I'm sure you know all that already, so I'm just reiterating that there are abstractions, and distance, and "democratic deficits" in the UK system too, and that you may be more comfortable with them because you are more familiar with them (and perhaps the problems tend to work in your favour over all).

> I suppose at the root of my issue is that the EU is made of nation states that are vastly different both culturally and economically. Within the UK there's a lot of difference of opinion, but we're still bound by the same culture, land mass and national economy ... we just aren't that similar to Germany or France or Belgium or Italy. I guess it comes from being an island nation.

I think this gets to the core difference between our two perspectives. I would say that I have more in common with a German, French, Belgian, or Italian person that had a similar profession to me, a similar age, and similar politics, than I might do with someone living across the street from me. Indeed, I've met, and lived with, and worked with, people who have travelled from across Europe, and I felt I could trust their input into the political processes that affect me (on a supra-national level) than apparently the average British voter. That doesn't mean I want someone in France deciding what the income tax rate is in the UK, or someone in Italy deciding whether to send British troops to war, but these are examples of political decisions which are deliberately left to member states (and we're not talking about one country deciding another's policies, we're talking about an electorate of equal individuals collectively deciding the evolution of their shared environment).

> the natural rights to the UK's resources are (from what I can see) being packaged up and sold off, to the detriment of the British fishing industry.

If the UK has "natural rights", they are the rights of the people of the UK, not of the British fishing industry (as I'm sure you'll agree). My point is that the government is entrusted with the duty to let those rights be delegated to whomever will serve the British people best (ignoring for the moment the more complicated judgements of making concessions in one area to gain greater benefits in others). As such, I don't think that the government is actually "giving up" its rights, as if some bureaucrat in Brussels is rubbing his hands with glee that he has tricked Britain into banning British fish catchers from British waters, and forcing the government to sit back in despair as "undeserving" foreign boats "invade" our waters. The only thing that the British government has given up is the ability to set its own (unrealistic, but politically expedient) quotas, and the ability to block competition from businesses that happen to be registered elsewhere in the EU. You could try to make the case that the one thing that coastal communities need is (in effect) subsidised industry, and that the British government would love to provide it if they weren't prevented by the EU, but even if that were true (at a time of record high levels of employment), I think that the benefits of EU membership (including the ability for British fish catchers to operate in other European countries' waters, and to sell fish tariff-free within the Single Market) outweigh this cost.

> You get a bigger slice of pie, but it's no longer your favourite flavour. ... If the EU negotiates as a bloc, how hard is it for us to reject a proposal?

I really like that analogy. But yes, the question you ask is a pertinent one and I don't have an obvious answer. Personally I rely on the reports of experts working in these areas, who seem to suggest that Britain does have a good amount of influence in these negotiations (and ends up with better deals than it would get outside the bloc), and look at the macro trends that suggest that EU membership has been good for the UK economy (even though that growing prosperity may not have been shared or invested correctly).

> capturing the profit for their own economy? That still strikes me as a net negative compared to a British company doing the same.

It strikes me as being similar to allowing foreign companies to trade in the UK, or allowing foreign goods into the UK. It would in theory be great for British businesses if they had no competition, but I'm not sure it would be so great for consumers and the economy generally.

> If it really is an open market, you would expect that British companies would win out ... So then, where is this unexpected result coming from?

I suppose we would similarly expect that a British search engine would offer better search results to British people, or a British social network would offer better friends. Sadly international trade isn't as simple as that.

> Having thought through the trade issue, I think it at least in part comes down to a trade-off of opportunity cost against collective bargaining + administrative overhead that cannot really be quantified.

Right, there are a whole load of variables that it is difficult to get an intuitive feel for, or even clear cut numerical values. That's why I resort to looking at high level trends, and checking specific (hopefully representative) areas against theoretical models and logical arguments and opinions of experts in those fields. I don't claim it has given me a perfect perspective (and I would be suspicious of anyone who said they had achieved that), but I'm reassured that I can go looking for alternative viewpoints without facing too much cognitive dissonance (just the amount you would expect when being prepared to change your mind about something you think you understand).

> I'm glad we're having this discussion, I feel like I'm learning a lot about both my position and yours.

This is something I'm very happy to agree with you on. It is rare to have a conversation with someone who can clearly express the other side of this debate without both sides feeling frustrated and resorting to rhetorical short cuts that fail to shine light on the underlying issues.