Commenting on President Obama’s remarks on the upcoming EU referendum TUV Castlereagh East councillor Andrew Girvin said:
“The issue of EU membership is one for the British people and then alone. It isn’t an issue which President Obama should seek to influence with public statements such as that of last night.
“As UK taxpayers we pour £19 billion pa into Brussels and even with the rebate and grants we get back less than half. In 2014 Treasury figures showed that the UK contribution to the EU was £19.234 billion while the UK rebate was £4.888 billion and we got a total of £4.539 billion in EU grants. The net cost of EU membership for the UK in 2014 was £9,807,000,000.00. That translates into a staggering daily cost of £26.9m or over £1m every hour!
“Additionally, EU membership is robbing us of the right to make our own decisions on such vital matters as immigration and trade agreements.
“I look forward to the time when we quit the EU and the UK regains its rightly position in the world. The UK, like President Obama’s US, needs to have the right to control its own borders and the right to negotiate its own trade agreements.