Treasury: UK’s EU Contribution up 50 Percent Between Brexit Vote and Divorce Date

The UK’s net contribution to Brussels is forecast to have soared by more than four billion pounds — over 51 percent –between the year the country voted for Brexit and the year it leaves the bloc.

The official Treasury forecast means British taxpayers are likely to hand over roughly one billion pounds a year extra for each year of the two-year Article 50 period and two-year “implementation period”.

The latest Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses report also confirms the UK paid an extra £700 million to the EU’s budget last year compared to the year before.

It reveals that, in the 2016-2017 financial year, the UK gave £8.088 billion to the European Union (EU), rising to £8.777 billion in 2017-2018.

And in the next two years, the membership bill is set to rapidly rise, according to the Treasury document, shooting up to £10.805 billion in 2018-2019 and £12.221 billion in 2019-2020.

The Treasury’s calculations do not take into account money the UK gets back from the EU through funding, such as research grants and university funding.

However, the facts4eu.org website, which highlighted the report, points out that the UK is likely to give even more cash to the EU than the Treasury forecasts, as much of the bloc’s spending, including foreign aid, is not included in its official budget.

The so-called “European Development Fund”, for example, is a massive 27 billion euro handout distributed between 2014-2020, with the UK contributing approximately 15 percent, or £4 billion, towards it.

There is also the “Facility for Refugees in Turkey”, which is more than £5 billion given to Islamist Turkey to stem the migrant crisis, that Prime Minister Theresa May has just agreed to pay an extra £300 million towards.

On the extra cash the UK has already paid to the EU, Tory Brexiteer Andrew Bridgen told the Daily Mail:

“This is another 700 million reasons why the British people were right to vote to leave the EU. People ask about the Brexit dividend – well this is it.

“If we were to leave without a deal on WTO terms then we wouldn’t have to pay this money in the future, we wouldn’t have to pay a divorce bill and we would have billions freed up to spend on the NHS and extra money for our schools, police and armed forces.”