Another argument I hear is about the erosion of British culture, personally I think this argument is inherently racist, Britain has always been an immigrant culture, but putting that aside I do not see the logic of it whatsoever. Are eastern Europeans really eroding British culture? I don't even notice eastern Europeans in the UK. There are no large polish areas that are overrunning inner city areas. It seems a lot more cultural friction is caused by the presence of Muslim and African populations in various areas, and this is something that leaving the EU would do absolutely nothing to change.
To be honest, that comes across as incredibly ignorant. You're essentially calling people like myself - people that live in an area drastically changed by immigration in the past 20 years - racists and phobic of immigrant culture. That simply isn't true. I come from an area in north west London that has changed so much in the past 20 years, that white British people are now a minority, according to the census (2011). You may "not see" immigration from wherever you have lived, but both myself and my family noticed a colossal change, working as nurses, allied healthcare professionals (working at hospitals in N/W London), and teachers. Shops, public areas, demographics, schools, hospitals, GP surgeries, workplaces, public transport... They all changed so quickly, with virtually no integration.
There's genuinely no point trying to convince someone that clearly hasn't at all experienced the pitfalls of mass immigration into certain parts of cities, the lack of social cohesion, low uptake of the English language, and the breakdown of basic cohesion (in my town especially). I'm not inherently racist. What I have a problem with is the microcosms that have formed in London, in which you can go 30+ years without learning a word of English, or be a British child that goes to a school populated by a majority of kids that use English as a second language.
Call me racist all you want. I respect that you want federalism, but I'll fight that supposed eventuality with every fibre of my being. You don't give the UK enough credit, and you over-emphasize the success of massive federalization and union of very different countries with very different governments, and very different economies. Apart from perhaps the US in modern times, most centralized empire fashioned superstates have massively failed, and usually rotted at a massive cost to the individual states involved.
In my opinion, anyone that claims mass immigration "isn't an issue because it hasn't affected them" is more of a bigot than the person raising a genuine issue for many people (look at the support for UKIP - I'm sure 1/10 of the British voting public aren't inherently racist, but rather feel as thought they have no fucking control over their lives, society and government as a result of open door immigration.
As for the so-called "democracy" that Europe represents. Pffffft. I never had the opportunity to vote for Jean-Claude Juncker and all his cronies that apparently represent me and my countrymen in the EC. Fuck them. The whole EC is an archaic socialist joke that stopped being funny after the 80s.