This is a sobering, reflective piece.

I, like many in the UK, find myself open mouthed at the political egos and unquestioning attitudes of many of the people.

The resignation of Cameron, the election of May, the General Election which did nothing to guarantee a majority government forcing the need to ‘buy allies’ all should have created the atmosphere for a cross-party approach to negotiations three years ago. Instead we get the crazy comedy of errors like of which has not been seen in British Politics, culminating in a Bill entering the statute books which forced the Prime Minister to reject a No Deal scenario before the 0 hour on April 12th.

This has left us with an extension to the debates, with no compromise in sight and even more political rhetoric focussed on carrying favour with voters rather than addressing the situation we find ourselves in.

I tried to offer some interesting numbers relating to Brexit in a recent debate, I will share them here…

What we pay into the EU Budget :

£13 billion — but this varies each year and is often less.

The oft quoted figure of £18.6 billion ignores the £5.6 billion rebate, which is immediately deducted from the ‘bill’

The ‘Red Bus’ and the £350 million per week?

£350 million a week to the EU?

The Brexit flagship campaign of being able to put £350m per week back into the NHS when we left the club.

This figure actually, ignores the rebate, and it doesn’t represent the total economic costs and benefits of EU membership to the UK.

£350 million is roughly what we would pay to the EU budget without the rebate. The UK actually paid closer to £250 million a week.

What the EU gives back

The government then gets some of that money back, mainly through payments to farmers and for ‘poorer areas’ including Wales and Cornwall.

In 2017, the UK’s ‘public sector receipts’ are estimated to be £4 billion.
So, over all we paid in £8.9 billion more than we got back.

The Statement…

A £20 billion funding increase to the NHS will be paid for in part through the ‘Brexit dividend’.

Was incorrect ….

There is no guaranteed extra money to pay for increased NHS funding from stopping our payments to the EU budget. Other costs associated with Brexit are expected to outweigh the savings.

(source : Full Fact : Independent Fact Checking Charity)

I guess, I should add that the figures above do not really address the numeorus intangibles in terms of benefits and/or disadvantages brought to businesses, security, business development and innovation, travel and migration membership (or not) to the EU has.

Cost of Brexit So Far…

The Treasury has allocated £4.2 billion towards government departments for Brexit preparations since 2016, which breaks down as:

£0.7 billion in 2017/2018
£1.5 billion in 2018/2019 (the focus of Labour’s claim)
£2 billion in 2019/2020

The Institute for Government have noted…

Brexit preparations cost around £400m in 2017/18
The cost will jump to at least £900m in 2018/19
The total cost could be as high as £2bn
The real cost of Brexit will not be clear for some time

The Centre for European Reform published the following for figures up to June 2018

The UK economy is 2.5 per cent smaller than it would be if the UK had voted to remain in the European Union.

The latest update of the Centre for European Reform’s calculation of the cost of Brexit in the second quarter of 2018 shows the damage is growing even though the UK has yet to leave the bloc.

The knock-on hit to the public finances is now £26 billion per annum — or £500 million a week.

Think I will leave it to those more financially minded to do the balance sheets here

As with all figures they are as relevant as the source. It was Disreli who said there are ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’, so numbers can be manipulated. In terms of our politicians they can manipulated as easily as words and promises

I think its worth remembering that ‘opinions’ are not ‘facts’ and in the case of Brexit I’m not sure where the ‘facts’ can be found as we are bombarded by emotionally driven opinion.

Just some thoughts stemming from some of frustrations being felt as a result of House of Commons and House of Lords who seem to be dancing around the issues and a less than majority Government wasting time in addressing the issues and questions much earlier in the process!

Alan /|\