GETTY Britain will pay £12 billion euros to Brussels next year

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The UK’s bill for membership of the Euro club will go towards bankrolling a Brussels border and coast guard, a new Agency for Asylum and the groundwork for an EU army. The eye-watering figure has been revealed in a new draft budget released by the EU Commission and equates to a staggering £230million a week.

The figure represents a slight drop compared with our contribution for this year, which stands at £13billion. Britain’s billions in contributions jumped up to double figures in 2014 when Brussels demanded a £34bn injection from the UK after realising it was facing a £259billion shortfall by the end of the decade.

GETTY The cash will go towards projects including setting up an EU coast guard

GETTY Brussels is also accelerating military cooperation

The staggering black hole in funding was split between member states to balance the books up to 2020. Brussels has this year cut the overall budget for the project from £120bn to £113bn amid growing criticism of its “bloated” institution and chronic waste. The budget, which will need to be ratified by member states and the European Parliament, will raise questions over how long Britain will need to continue paying into the EU. A spokesman for the Commission said: “The UK remains a member of the EU with all rights and obligations. Consequently, the results of the UK referendum have no impact on Draft EU Budget 2017.” It is expected that British taxpayers will continue to fund the project for at least two years following the Brexit vote, though officials have privately admitted "nobody knows" how long it will take to disentangle the UK from Brussels.

GETTY Nigel Farage has suggested Britain should continue to pay into the EU post-Brexit

GETTY But Tory leadership contender Andrea Leadsom wants to sever ties as soon as possible

UKIP’s Nigel Farage has even suggested we should carry on funding the project but, with our net contribution to the EU running at around £8.5 billion a year, others including Tory frontrunner Andrea Leadsom are calling for Article 50 to be triggered immediately. As soon as the process is started, Britain will have just two years to negotiate its exit from the European Union with other member states. If the deadline passes without an agreement, the UK will simply cease to be an EU member overnight. It can only be extended by the unanimous vote of all the remaining 27 countries in the bloc, with some experts predicting there may be little appetite to accommodate Britain post-Brexit. And one exasperated senior UK official has admitted: “The honest answer is nobody knows how long this would take and we would all be making it up.” Other Tory leadership candidates, such as Liam Fox and Michael Gove, have advocated delaying triggering legal talks with Brussels, during which time the UK would continue to foot its membership bill.

Brexit: What happens next Fri, June 24, 2016 After yesterday's referendum, here is a look at what will happen immediately following the historic vote for Britain to leave the EU. Play slideshow AFP/Getty Images 1 of 14 Brexit: What to expect next