France, along with a lot of other EU leaders, are calling for the UK to waive its subsidy on EU contributions. Currently, the UK pays £5bn a year in contributions and then receives a subsidy of around £3bn. This means we pay around £2bn per year in contributions to the EU. On the other hand, France - with it's larger country and population - pays only £1bn after subsidies. Even Slovakia pays more than France.
At the current rate, I think we are better off in the EU because we would almost certainly lose more than £2bn worth of trade by leaving the EU. If we lose the subsidy we may as well not be in the EU.
All this led me to do some maths on the figures that the anti-EU camp bandy around - UKIP in particular. Their election leaflet for the South Staffs election gives two figures for the saving we would make from leaving the EU. The first figuer is £39m per day and the other is £30m per day. I can't seem to get anywhere near this figure.
Annual contribution: £5,000,000,000
Divide it by 365 gives you:
£13,698,630 per day
Take into account susidies of £3bn per year:
Annual contribution: £2,000,000,000
Divide it by 365 gives you:
£5,479,452 per day
So where do the figures of £39m per day and £30m per day come from? These figures of £13.7m and £5.5m per day that I got don't include any of the benefits of free trade agreements, preferential trade agreements, tax and duty benefits, etc.
Can any eurosceptic please explain to me how the UK leaving the EU will save the country £39m or £30m per day?
Thanks.