and even worse - the EU at £12 billion PER ANNUM NET!
Ahem...
[Pedant mode]
UK gross contribution to EU in 2015 : £13bn
EU spending on UK in 2015 : £4.5bn
Net cost of EU membership : £8.5bn
Total UK Government expenditure in 2015 : £760bn
UK GDP in 2015: £1807bn
Cost of EU membership as a % of public spending : 1.1%
Cost of EU membership as a % of GDP : 0.4%
[/pedant mode]
This is why I refuse to get very concerned by the EU issue, it is cheap entertainment.
In context:
We spend close to 4 times as much on the MOD and plan to increase to 2%.
The NHS costs us 6.3% of GDP.
Likewise EU immigration.
87% of EU migrants, according to HMRC, work and mostly do jobs Brit wouldn't do, so they neither steal jobs nor cost us much.
I ignore the EU, at worst it is just an irritation.
I also ignore the UK media, it is controlled by people who make Mr Trump look reasonable.
