Before Monday I have always taken an impartial stance when ingesting information produced by clearly pro-Leave and pro-Remain groups, to analyze the information and take time to cross-reference it with the information available on the internet. However, when I read the released Yellowhammer papers, cross-referenced them with the leaked papers published in the Sunday Times as well as the comment made by the First Minister for Scotland, I started to wonder: Why is the UK still pursuing Brexit?

The only reason, politically, I can conceive is to allow the Tory party to square off the Brexit Party and siphon off all their votes - however, I cannot see how that can be the only reason.

At the moment, support for Scottish Independence has gone up - Brexit contributing to the support for a second independence referendum - and Welsh Independence has a sharp increase in support over the past few weeks, posing a threat to the current structure of the union (which wouldn't be all that good for the stability of the country, especially if a Scottish indyref takes place in the next 3 years); the Yellowhammer Papers outline near-paralysis on the imports of Medicine and Food, it even states that people that are under the most financial strain will more disadvantaged than the rest of the citizenry; the NI/ROI border issue hasn't been solved; and, to make matters worse, there is a high possibility to a recession brought on by the US-China trade war as well as the uncertainty brought on by Brexit (and no deal).

As the Government is pressing on with what looks like the only Brexit the UK is getting, a no-deal Brexit, why are we pressing on with it? The disadvantages outweigh the advantages previously stated in the 2016 referendum, and all but no deal has been thrown out of the window for being either too soft, not fitting the Governments 'red lines', or not being Brexity enough (Customs Union, Canada deal, &c).

If Brexit will do the opposite to what was promised in the official campaign, then why pursue it - when it will do so much damage to the UK?

There are multiple reasons.

Financial gains

Some people may stand to make money over a no-deal Brexit. The simplest way to argue for this taking short positions on stocks that will be badly affected by a no-deal Brexit and then trying to make sure that outcome is reached.

The Byline Times recently published an article on this in relation to Brexit:

Currently, £8,274,350,000 (£8.3 billion) of aggregate short positions has been taken out by hedge funds connected to the Prime Minister and his Vote Leave campaign, run by his advisor Dominic Cummings, on a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

Less regulation

This is actually a point that may be easier outside the EU on a no-deal basis. Within the EU or inside some customs arrangement, the UK will have to conform to some (or many, depending on the type of arrangements) EU regulations. On the whole, that's a good thing, but there may well be sectors where less regulation is good for some business. An example may be shady banks that are fairly strictly regulated after the financial crisis of 2008, something no-deal Brexit Britain may choose to relax. Another is about corporate tax, they could try to become a tax haven (see this Reuters article touching on that). Not necessarily good for the UK as a whole, but possibly beneficial for those businesses.

Credibility, not wanting to admit having mislead voters

A lot of politicians campaigned / supported for Brexit, some before the referendum (e.g. PM Boris, Brexit Party leader Farage) and some afterwards (former Conservative leader and PM Theresa May, Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn). Coming back from that position may be hard electorally, as it means admitting having supported something that cannot be delivered.

Electoral difficulties

Since many people have bought into Brexit (it was advertised a certain way, they will not settle for not getting it) and still want it. Especially if you consider that many people who have never really been involved with politics may have come to because of Brexit-related promises, abandoning the project altogether may be political suicide (as other parties will still try to profit from those voters).

Besides the (oft repeated) argument of implementing the will of the people from the referendum, in more realpolitik terms, Boris Johnson has hitched his wagon to the "do [Brexit] or die" slogan. And he said it pretty often. It's hard to take back something like that.

After the EU election of this summer, in which the Conservative party came 5th, it has recovered substantially in voting intention (for a general election) following Johnson's election to the Conservative leadership, who campaigned on the aforementioned platform.

A number of Conservative commentators are egging Johnson to take Farage's offer of a pact, which entails Johnson endorsing no-deal Brexit in return for the Brexit Party not contesting the seats the Conservatives are likely to win. For now Johnson, at least publicly, still sticks to his line that he will likely get a last-minute deal, on more favorable terms than what Theresa May got from the EU. (Actually, two days ago, Johnson has even publicly rejected, through his spokesperson, Farage's offer.)