So we can make trade deals with countries EU doesn't have trade deals with yet can't make trade deals the EU has deals with. But if we already have a deal with a country in the EU setup why would we then setup a separate deal outside the EU setup with the same country? Undercutting the EUs deal in some way to gain some kind of advantage?

That's a complete non-sequitur. 80% democracy is better that 60%. It's not binary. After we ditch the EU, we can consider ditching the house of lords if we want.

Yes, the commission proposes the laws. That's where the power lies. The MEPs input into that is incredibly weak, because you slant everything by only ever proposing laws that go in a single direction on a particular issue. Imagine if there's an issue where the population is divided between positions A and B. Half of the MEPs are therefore representing people who want position A and half for people who want position B. Well the commission can then propose 10 different laws that work towards position A and none than works toward position B. They'll then say "well you had the chance to reject our 10 laws, so it was still ultimately up to you".  That just doesn't work. Sooner or later, that leads to you going with position A. It's just rigging the system. Like weighting a coin flip.

But those regulations would only apply to your trade with the EU, rather than to all of your business.

The advantage there is that it gives you the power to actually weigh differences between trading partners and see if one version works out cheaper than the other, in a way that you otherwise can't.

So you'll have the cost of meeting those regulations VS the price saved by better negotiation power. That balance will likely change from country to country and also business to business. 

That's the thing, I see it as 60% vs 60%. Our commissioner is picked by the Prime Minister so is effectively there to help make laws that benefit the UK (or whatever legislation the Tories would like to bring in). This is no different to the cabinet positions as I see it. Sure, we get to vote for the MPs before they make it to the cabinet but it's still Cameron picking the people who come up with the legislation. I can't vote for which MP will become Health Secretary and I can't vote for our member of the EU commission.

On the flip side we vote for MEPs and we vote for our Government who is represented in the Council when needed. If either the Council or Parliament can't agree on a proposal it never gets put through so its not like we don't have a say. The House of Lords on the other hand can completely scrap any bit of legislation they don't like the look of, even if our elected officials have passed it through.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the EU system is any better than our own, but I don't see how it's any worse. It's just different and has to take into account 28 countries. Like I said earlier, two systems, both shit.

Honestly, it feels to me like we're using the EU as a scape-goat instead of blaming our own politicians and MEPs incompetence for not representing our interests properly.

That's still a rather large chunk of business, especially for people who predominantly do business in the EU and without any say in future regulations. Your second point is the one big advantage I see, but I also don't see us having much negotiation power outside the EU.

We're a nation of 65 million versus a trading block of 500 million in the EU. We can make more targeted negotiations based on the UK economy, but when we enter negotiations, the power will lie with larger trading blocks/countries. I also don't fancy waiting around for a few years whilst our politicians sort out trade deals that may or may not be better than the deals we already have in place.

There was an article I read once that UKIP MEPs were actually not turning up to votes on new laws and rules out of protest of the EU. Which is a contridiction of what they should be doing, voting and having their say represents us, not being there and not voting just means EU passes silly rules easier meaning more people complain and vote in more UKIP.

They don't turn up because they want the whole EU to fail. Voting for UKIP to represent us as our MEPs is totally counter productive as our views don't get taken into consideration at all. The worst part is they still get paid for not representing us. 

Well I don't disagree with much of that. But how does that end up as 60% vs 60% to you? It's a slightly undemocratic system combined with another slightly democratic system. It's just basic maths. If you were to say each of them is 80% democratic, the combined effect would be 0.8*0.8=0.64

Ah, I get what you're saying now. I was comparing the two systems but you're taking it collectively. Fair enough, but it's not a simple case of applying arbitary percentages to how democratic the systems are and then using basic Maths to multiply out. 

To me they can be used in tandem to keep each other in check. If you don't think a ruling or piece of legislation in the UK is correct you at least have an extra method of escalation. And the protests over the TTIP deal show we can influence EU decision making. 

Looking very close right now. I work in banking- you should see the implied volatility of GBP!