Angus Reid: UK would vote out of EU

Through Daniel Hannan, I discovered an Angus Reid (Vision Critical) report entitled "Britons Offer Harsh Review of Country’s EU Membership":

If a referendum on staying in the continental group were held today, 42% would vote to get out; 35% would vote to stay.

[LONDON – Jun. 1, 2010] – If given the chance, many people in Britain would distance their country from the European Union (EU), a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,984 British adults, 51 per cent of respondents say EU membership has been moderately negative (26%) or very negative (25%) for the United Kingdom.

Conversely, seven per cent of Britons say the EU has been very positive for the UK, and 31 per cent regard it as moderately positive.

If a referendum on the UK’s permanence in the EU were called, two fifths of Britons (42%) would vote in favour of pulling out, while 35 per cent would vote to stay.

If a plebiscite on the UK adopting the euro were called, a large majority of Britons (79%) would vote against abandoning the pound as the national currency. Only nine per cent of respondents would welcome the euro.

If a plebiscite were actually called, the EU and some of our own politicians would spend significant sums of taxpayers' money trying to convince us to stay. The BBC and other EU-friendly media would likewise kick into action, and may swing the result. It would be a terrible distraction at a time when our politicians should be fully focused on our national finances, and the uncertainty would upset markets that are already jittery.

On the other hand, think of the enormous benefits if we were to break free ...