EU rinsed Britain of nearly £200 billion

New figures reveal Britain has handed over more than half a trillion pounds to the EU since joining in 1973.

The startling reality of how much British taxpayers have given Brussels came from a paper produced by independent experts in the House of Commons Library.

In real terms, the total gross sum of UK contributions to the EU/EC budget since 1973 is an astonishing £501,853 million. After taking into account rebate, refunds and public sector receipts, the total British net contribution stands at £184,535 million in today’s money.

Britain’s EU bill has risen significantly over the years. In 1973 Britain paid just over 1.8 billion in today’s money, however in 2015, Britain had to hand over almost £20 billion.

The true extent of how Britain has bankrolled the EU comes as Brussels bureaucrats demand British taxpayers hand over another £50 billion as part of a Brexit deal.

Senior Brexiteers have dismissed these claims, firstly because of the huge sums of money Britain has contributed to prop up the EU project and secondly because of the UK’s share of EU assets.

According to European think tank Bruegel, the EU is estimated to have £133.2 billion of assets and “the existing available ‘Brexit bill’ calculations have considered only a small subset of these assets”. The think tank says there are £35.5 billon assets which can be considered as an EU ‘accumulated wealth’. This includes cash (£18.8 billion), property (£7.5 billion), available-for-sale financial assets (£8.3 billion) and other assets (£0.86 billion). The independent think tank says that “A share of this should probably be apportioned to the UK upon Brexit”.

In addition to this, there are outstanding loans granted by the EU of around £48.5 billion, which, if EU borrowing is considered as a liability that should be apportioned to the UK on Brexit, then EU loans should also be apportioned to the UK as an asset.

Commenting on the figures, Leave Means Leave Board Member Peter Bone said:

“The true scale of how much hardworking British taxpayers have handed over to Brussels over the years is horrifying.

“British voters should be able to breathe a sigh of relief as their hard earned money will no longer be sent to the anti-democratic EU. Unfortunately, unelected bureaucrats including Jean Claude Juncker have other ideas.

“It is outrageous for Brussels to demand another £50 billion from Britain in order to leave. They have not taken into account the huge sums Britain has given the EU as the second largest contributor to the EU nor the assets to which Britain would be entitled.

“I urge the Government to stand firm against these unreasonable demands and works to secure the assets Britain is rightfully entitled to.”