LONDON _ New figures appear set to reignite the dispute over one the most controversial claims made by the campaign to get Britain out of the European Union.
Vote Leave said during the Brexit referendum campaign last year that Britain pays 350 million pounds ($460 million) a week to the bloc, money that could be redirected to the cash-strapped state-run National Health Service. The figure was emblazoned on the side of its campaign bus and is regarded as being influential in swinging the referendum in favor of a vote to quit the EU.
But figures published Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics in London show Britain contributed 9.4 billion pounds last year, about 180 million pounds a week, once the money the U.K. gets back from the EU is taken into account. This includes a 5 billion-pound rebate and 4.4 billion pounds in public-sector credits such as payments via the European Regional Development Fund and the Agricultural Guarantee Fund.
The net contribution averaged just 8.1 billion pounds between 2012 and 2016 if EU data on credits to the U.K. public and private sectors, such as research grants to British universities, are included, according to the ONS.
The 350 million-pound claim was widely criticized, with the U.K. Statistics Authority saying it was "potentially misleading" and undermined trust in official statistics because it ignored money the EU sends back to Britain. Chair David Norgrove said in September he was "surprised and disappointed" when Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit advocate, continued to use the figure.
Britain's gross contribution to the EU was 18.9 billion pounds last year, the equivalent of 363 million pounds a week, "but this amount of money was never actually transferred to the EU," the ONS said in a note accompanying the release of its annual update of balance-of-payments data.
