EU rejoining would cost UK £750m weekly, campaign group warns

Summarised from 2 outlets · 3 reports · Updated 14 Nov, 14:38 · Archive

A campaign group has claimed that Britain rejoining the EU would cost £39.3 billion annually, or £750 million per week.

A campaign group called Stay Out has launched a warning that Britain rejoining the EU would cost £750 million a week in annual contributions, totalling £39.3 billion yearly. The figure is more than double the £350 million per week cited during the 2016 referendum campaign.

The group, founded by former Brexit campaigners including Oliver Lewis, Boris Johnson's chief Brexit negotiator, and Michael Gove, chairman of the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, attributes the higher costs to three factors. The EU's budget is expected to almost double to £1.8 trillion, with member states needing to contribute 1.26 per cent of gross national income by 2028, up from 0.9 per cent in 2019. Additionally, interest payments on the bloc's pandemic borrowing could reach £20.4 billion by 2028. Crucially, senior EU figures have stated that Britain would no longer receive the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher.

Mr Lewis warned that the EU rejoining would be 'more indebted, divided and expensive than the one we left'. Lord Gove added that rejoining would mean 'handing back control of our laws, borders, money and trade' whilst paying substantially more in membership fees. The intervention comes ahead of Prime Minister Andy Burnham's planned visit to Brussels on 20 November.

How it is being reported

• Rejoining EU would cost £750m a week, new campaign claims as Andy Burnham cozies up to BrusselsThe group, Stay Out, blames Brussels' spiralling budget, a doubling of its borrowing costs and no chance of recovering the UK's special rebate.Daily Mail · 14 Nov, 11:50
• Rejoining EU would cost Britain £750m a week, Brexit campaign group warnsAndy Burnham has been warned that taking Britain back into the European Union could cost the country hundreds of millions of pounds a week. A new Brexit campaign group, Stay Out, has claimed the UK would need to pay as much as £39.3billion each year in contributions if the Prime Minister carried out a Brexit U-turn. The eye-watering figures are more than double the gross amount paid in 2016, before the UK left the bloc. Oliver Lewis, Boris Johnson's chief Brexit negotiator, as well as Lord Michael Gove, the chairman of the 2016 campaign, are heading up the new group. Mr Lewis warned the…GB News · 14 Nov, 08:05
• Andy Burnham's bid to rejoin the EU could cost the UK £750 milllion a week - double the price tag when Britain left a decade agoA study by the new campaign group Stay Out reveals that the size of the EU's annual budget has doubled since the UK voted to leave a decade ago.Daily Mail · 13 Nov, 18:00

In this story: Andy Burnham · Michael Gove · Oliver Lewis · Margaret Thatcher · Stay Out · European Union · European Commission

This summary was written by AI from the headlines and standfirsts above, and states as fact only what at least two outlets report. How we use AI · Report a problem · Corrections log