I think the UK has been trying to ‘preserve the cake’ and eat it too for decades. Right from the inception of the EU’s predecessors — the UK treated their Transatlantic commitments and Commonwealth commitments with way more importance. They were possibly right to do so because they were, in the 1950’s, still Europe’s largest economy and was way more dependent on Commonwealth trade.

However, that fatal miscalculation, the failure to take charge of leading a new Europe, compounded many times over by everyone from Churchill to Major has brought the UK to this precipice. Perversely, crashing out might be the only thing which will convince the nation that being wholly in is a way better proposition than being wholly out or half in like it has been for decades.