it’s actually more nuanced - the UK pays into a membership fund and a large chunk of that is used in initiatives or projects within the UK.
In addition membership grants it the right to freely transact with markets across the the eu, so it gets a lot out of the membership — and so do the other members.
In 2018 the UK government paid £13 billion to the EU budget, and EU spending on the UK was forecast to be £4 billion. So the UK’s ‘net contribution’ was estimated at nearly £9 billion.
A membership fee isn’t the same as the total economic cost or benefit of EU membership.
Being in the EU costs money but does it also create trade, jobs and investment that are worth more?
The government then gets some of that money back, mainly through payments to farmers and for poorer areas of the country such as Wales and Cornwall.
In 2017, the UK’s ‘public sector receipts’ are estimated to be £4.3 billion.
The article I referred to does go into that. I didn’t paste the whole thing. Still, the U.K. pays Brussels, it the other way around.