Why Brexit is too much like Scylla and Charybdis

A couple of times recently I've been in casual group conversations when the Brexit thing has popped up. In the course of these chats I've mentioned the run-rate payment figure and everyone said I was way off the mark. I decided to recheck the numbers from ONS and found that my approximations were, indeed, almost exact.

The most current complete ONS Pink Book (2016) gives the following figures:

But actually, there's a few more credits from the EC back to the private sector, so the real numbers are slightly different and a bit lower than the figures I remembered.

But, goes the argument, even if I'm right, that's still an awful lot of money...

Well, yes, to a single individual, but not to a Government exchequer. My similar calculation for the amount of the annual UK run-rate is around 1%. Here's the pie chart, which I originally generated about 18 months ago on 9 March 2017.

We can see that the EU spending is one of the smallest items, albeit now consuming nearly all of the UK's available government bandwidth. To the point about it still being a big number, here's how it falls out:

About 40p per person per day. I have a sneaking suspicion that the new cost of being 'out' will be somewhat higher. So my thinking is that we've given the government, other politicians and even the opposition a chance to come up with a proper exit plan.

Everyone has failed, giving a choice between 'No Deal' (Crash out) and 'Chequers' - a cobbled together deal which even the Conservatives can't agree about.

It's even more galling to see some of those responsible for the mess now taking side-swipes at what is ultimately of their own doing.

It leaves Mrs May between a rock and a hard place. Choose a whirlpool or a multi headed monster.

Unfortunately, Mrs May doesn't have a Circe to advise on the choice.

Her advisors are about as foresightful as Epimetheus, shown here taking Pandora's gift. Will he open the box? Oops.

It makes my own Brexit decision preference appear loopy, but to me, still the best option. Even at this late stage, just abandon the whole thing.

I'll argue that we need to make the choice richer.

• No Deal (awful and this way lies the freefall madness of the whirlpool)
• Chequers deal (bad enough and already compromised. Meet the 6 headed monster)
• Rescind Article 50 and stay in. Like the same as now, but ideally with better representatives than the saboteurs we all elected

No one yet likes my last option. It's backtracking, against the will of the people, unconstitutional, could create civil unrest, too late.

But it's my preference and I think it should be given proper airtime alongside the awful options. We have just wasted two years not achieving anything. Let's not waste another four splashing through a whirlpool whilst having our industries and services picked off one-by-one by a multi-headed monster.