Readers will remember the major campaign by Remainers about the 'lies on the bus', the claim by Johnson and other members of his campaign, that the UK paid £350m a week to the EU as members. Lies because that was the gross figure that did not allow for rebates and discounts,which reduced the contribution by about a third (as I recall). Nevertheless, the furore disclosed an uncomfortable truth -- Britain was indeed a net contributor, despite the common claims that the EU had provided money for us to build various facilities, from leisure centres to motorway bridges, displayed nightly on TV news items and represented by plaques on the buildings.
Issues of contribution have reappeared. Private Eye this edition (1675 May2026) is normally resolutely Remainer, but its small mildly sceptical column disclosed that Brexiteers claimed a net benefit of £9.4bn from not making contributions to the EU, but this was wrong (typical spin). 'The "dividend" has been steadily whittled away as successive governments realised they do, in fact, want to cherry pick'
That whittling began with the 'billions the UK has paid towards the pensions of British Eurocrats', and went on to include £2.2bn for access to Horizon Europe research and development. This Government has paid £750m to access the student exchange scheme Erasmus and E766m to France to limit small boat crossings. They are talking about access to the SAFE programme (Security Action for Europe) , but resiled from the demand for a £6bn joining fee in favour of a 'hefty contgribution' to the E90bn loan to Ukraine, and talks about the European Innovation Council Fund.
The extra proposal for future closer alignment are estimated to cost £1bn a year.
Overall, Google's AI system says that:
Between 2019 and the end of 2024, the UK paid a total of approximately £63.3 billion to the EU, which consisted of £38.3 billion in standard membership contributions (up to January 2020) and £25 billion for the Withdrawal Agreement "divorce bill" (up to December 2024)
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