Brexit debate: Britain and the EU in facts and figures

As Britain looks to vote on its future in the European Union on Thursday, it's clear that money is a key topic of conversation in the debate.

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File image Source: AAP

Money is at the heart of many a battle and Thursday's referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union or quit is no exception. 

Voters have been hit with a blizzard of statistics from the "Remain" and "Leave" camps, often produced selectively to boost their side of the argument.

Here are some of the facts and figures being disputed in the run-up to the vote:

Britain's contribution to the EU budget

"Leave" campaigners claim it is £350 million ($686 million, 455 million euros) a week.

But that is a gross figure that does not include the rebate famously won by prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984.

With the rebate stripped out, the figure is £280 million ($407 million) a week based on 2014 data, according to Iain Begg, a research professor at the London School of Economics' European Institute, in a study entitled "So how much does Britain pay the EU?"

In 2015, Britain contributed an estimated £17.8 billion ($24.7 billion) to the EU budget, or £12.9 billion after the rebate, according to a parliamentary briefing paper.

Brussels subsidies

In return, Britain receives some £6 billion of subsidies, notably to the agriculture and scientific research industries.

"Remain" campaigners say this support would go if Britain pulled out, while "Leave" campaigners say British money would be better spent directly by the government.

Britain is the 10th biggest net contributor, proportionate to the size of its economy, of the 28 members, according to 2014 figures from the European Commission.

EU immigration

Immigration from the EU is proving to be one of the key battlegrounds of the campaign.

The total number of EU migrants living in Britain doubled between 2004 and 2015 to three million people, according to the Migration Observatory of Oxford University.

The rise is due to the EU taking in eight Central and Eastern European states in 2004, including Poland, but in the more recent financial crisis, immigrants from eurozone countries such as Spain and Italy also headed to Britain.

The pro-Brexit Justice Secretary Michael Gove claims that if Britain stays in the EU, more than five million immigrants may arrive over the next 15 years, putting "unsustainable" pressure on the health and education systems.
The projection assumes Turkey, Albania, Serbia and Montenegro join the EU by 2020.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who supports Turkish accession, says it would be decades before there was the prospect of this happening.

Meanwhile Britons are also on the move and settled around Europe.

According to United Nations figures, 1.3 million Britons lived in the rest of the EU in 2013, of which 300,000 live in Spain, 250,000 in Ireland and 200,000 in France.

Trade

The EU as a whole is by far Britain's biggest trading partner. In 2015, 44 percent of Britain's exports went to other EU states, from which it imported 53 percent of its goods, according to government figures.

"Remain" supporters say this underlines the importance of staying in the single market, while "Leave" backers say EU exports to Britain mean Brussels will have an interest in negotiating favourable trade terms in case of a Brexit.

Jobs

The British government says three million jobs are directly or indirectly linked to trade with other EU countries.

The government says the figure is based on the assumption that "the share of UK employment linked to trade with the EU is equal to the share of total UK value added (GDP) generated in the production of goods and services exported to the EU".



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4 min read
Published 20 June 2016 11:44am
Updated 20 June 2016 11:47am
Source: AFP


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