The UK is set to pay the EU £50billion despite Brexit in what has been slammed as a “slap in the face”. New data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the UK handed over £3.25billion to Brussels in 2024, suggesting that the total paid to the EU since Britain left early in 2020 stood at approximately £44billion. In addition, the Government has committed to forking out a further £8billion as part of the divorce pact.
This means post-Brexit payments are poised to pass £50billion. In July 2024, the Treasury’s latest estimate was that the net cost of the separation settlement to the UK would be £30.2billion. During the Brexit transition period, until the end of 2020, the UK paid into the EU budget almost as if it were a member state. Britian also received funding from EU programmes as if it were still a member.
In December 2017, then-Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed that the UK and Brussels had agreed “the scope of [Britain’s EU] commitments, and methods for valuations and adjustments to those values.”
The bill is made up of the UK’s contribution to EU annual budgets up to 2020, the payment of outstanding commitments and financing liabilities up to the end of 2020.
Frank Furedi, boss of the MCC Brussels think-tank, told MailOnline that British negotiators have been “taken for a ride”.
Former Conservative Brexit minister David Jones, now of Reform UK, said: “This is nothing less than a slap in the face to all the hard-working Britons who are currently struggling with a cost-of-living crisis.
“The European Union should no longer be the recipient of funds from this country as far as I’m concerned.”
Last month, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, claimed that Brexit is partly to blame for high inflation in the UK.
She added that the divorce has made Britain’s economy and productivity “weaker” than initially forecast when the country voted to leave in 2016.
Businesses have faced “increasing red tape” since Britain left the EU, Ms Reeves also stated, and workers are “now locked out of the jobs market in Europe”.
There are “obviously huge benefits from rebuilding some of those relations”, the Chancellor added.
