First class piece by Dan Hannan on the British EU rebate:

The British Abatement kicks in only when we are paying in more than we get out, providing for a percentage of our net contribution to be returned. It does nothing to correct the underlying bias against us. In the 20 years since Margaret Thatcher's deal, we have remained the second largest net contributor, paying £170 billion gross (£50 billion net) into the EU budget. A billion here, a billion there: pretty soon it starts to add up to real money.

Only once in 32 years of membership have we run a surplus. Indeed, in almost every year since we joined, we and the Germans have been the only two states to make any net contribution at all. At the same time, far more affluent nations - including Luxembourg, which has the highest per capita GDP in the EU - were receiving handsome dividends. In other words - pace, Margaret - we never really got "our money back"; all we did was slightly reduce our tribute. The sums involved are larger than many people realise. Last year, according to the Treasury, we paid £11.7 billion gross (£4.2 billion net) to the EU.

...I have never understood why commentators tend to cite the net rather than the gross figure. They do not do so in any other field of government activity. No one argues, for example, that income tax is not really 22 pence in the pound but zero, because the entire sum is "given back" in roads, schools and hospitals. So what if £8 billion or so is spent in the UK? It is not spent on schemes we should have chosen for ourselves; indeed, it is often allocated to projects whose chief purpose is to advertise the EU.

There is no such thing as an "EU grant". When people talk about European money, what they really mean is British money that has been sloshed through the various tubes and compartments of the Brussels machine, leaking all the way, before dribbling back to these shores.

...Let us for once respect the voters' verdict. Let us scrap the corrupt schemes that the EU is paying for: the foreign aid boondoggles, the bogus structural grants, the grotesque agricultural regime. If we can't make the budget sleaze-free, let us at least make it smaller.

If Tony Blair had the cojones, he would appeal over the heads of the French and German leaders to their peoples. Your own politicians may be determined to ignore your wishes, he would say, but I shall respect them. I shall use the British presidency of the EU to propose a wholesale repatriation of powers to the national capitals. And, in doing so, I shall reduce these bloated billions that Brussels keeps sucking in to no very good end. Then everyone, not just the Brits, could have their money back.