I’ve seen it said that the EU costs us £350 million a week and also that this is a lie and after the rebate (a negotiated lowering of budget contributions by Maggie T based on perception of an unfair funding formula) it costs £290 million a week but that regardless we are a net contributor so we are paying for other countries.
Regardless this is all lies because a) government income is not a cost that could be done away with by removing that layer of government and b) we never ever ever budget costs as per-week so the figure is meaningless.
Edinburgh council costs us £38 million pounds a week (http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/11418/audited_annual_accounts_2017-2018.pdf), should we do away with the Edinburgh council? Glasgow council by contrast with a similar population (remember many Glaswegians live in Dunbartonshire or Lanarkshire or other council areas) costs us £51million a week (https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=42909&p=0). So Edinburgh is subsidising Glasgow massively! We should withdraw Glasgow’s membership of Scotland!
The UK is the third largest contributor to the EU behind Germany and France (https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-one-biggest-contributors-eu-budget/). This is because of our large population and high GDP. This is a good thing. The EU is a layer of government which gives us freedom to do whatever we want to do and common rules on the boring stuff like wattage of vacuum cleaners. Removing ourselves from the EU will kill off our economy and freedoms. This is a bad thing. It’s very normal in any functioning government system that poorer areas will get a top up from richer areas, that reduces inequality which helps everyone and it means the poorer areas can catch up and become rich. It’s why Scotland subsidies England massively from our revenue from our natural resources, talent and good looks. And that will continue as long as we are all part of a union. By far the more sensible union there is the EU, but if England wants to remove itself from that then likely Scotland will terminate the UK union as no longer functional and that is very much England’s loss as well as our own.
Don’t let the populists win with criminal behavior and lies. Vote remain on May 23rd.