Going viral: The website showing exactly how EU money is spent in Britain

A website set up to show how EU money is spent in Britain is going viral, with more than 1,500 views a minute.

In terms of internet content, myEU.uk does not immediately look like something primed to go viral. No-one is owning anybody else in the most awesome way. It will not tell you which donut matches your personality, or show you 21 pictures of guinea pigs which will melt your cold, dead heart.

But what it does do – show how EU funding is invested in your area, right down to postcode – is attracting 1,500 views a minute. For context, that is the sort of figure which would make a YouTuber a millionaire in advertising revenue.

Developed in July at a hackathon – a design event for programmers – run by anti-Brexit campaign groups Best for Britain and Tech for UK, myEU.uk shows people the value of funding for the EU for their communities, then allows them to write to their MP to demand a final say on any Brexit deal negotiated by Theresa May.

To use the tool you simply type in your postcode and see what the EU has supported in your area, illustrated on a map.

Eloise Todd, chief of Best for Britain, said: “The EU invests around £5bn a year in the UK and with myEU.uk every community can see how they benefit from this money.

“This support means more jobs and greater prosperity in places up and down the UK.

“People across the country need to know they have the right to the deal we currently have – we must be able to compare the deal we currently have to the deal the government comes back with, because any kind of Brexit would leave us worse off, and a soft Brexit deal would leave us with no say at all over the majority of laws that govern our trade.

“Technology can help us and we’ll be running these hackathons over the coming months.” She said she hoped that people would use the app and contact their MP to make sure “the people and not politicians have the final say on whether we leave the EU”.

The app’s designer, Hope Thomas said the number and range of things the EU had funded around Europe really surprised the team when they started to look at it.

“The reaction to the site has shown us how many people are affected by the work the EU has been doing,” he said.

Visit the site here.