Is Britain sleepwalking towards a European exit?Shock four-country poll reveals widening gulf between Britain and EUPoll of France Germany, Poland and the UK shows British hostile to EU, and other nations hostile to Britain.

Por outras palavras: E se o "início do fim" fosse marcado não pela queda da Grécia ... mas pela saída voluntária do Reino Unido ?

Ukip Leader Nigel Farage poses inside a Ukip-branded cab. Photograph: London News Pictures/REX
 "All three mainstream parties are terrified of Ukip, and aware of the state of public opinion. Next September's referendum on whether the people of Scotland want to stay in the United Kingdom will further test the depth of separatist tendencies. Then will come a general election campaign in which the main parties, again, will have one eye on Nigel Farage's party when drawing up their manifestos. Pro-EU campaign statements will be in short supply."

Is Britain sleepwalking towards a European exit?

An Observer poll conducted in four countries reveals the widening gulf between Britain and the rest of the EU. And on both sides of the Channel, attitudes seem to be hardening

Toby Helm, political editor

The Observer, Saturday 30 November 2013/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/30/britain-european-exit-poll-gulf-eu-attitudes

Slowly but surely, Britain is detaching itself from the European project, slipping into an EU membership category of its own, one marked "outlier nation". That, at least, was the impression left by statements emanating from a European Union summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on Friday, where the UK's reputation as the club's most awkward and unhappy member was underlined yet again.

It is also the clear lesson from a landmark four-nation poll of attitudes to Europe carried out by Opinium in the UK, Germany, France and Poland and published by the Observer.

The survey shows not only that British people regard the EU much more negatively than do citizens of other countries, but also that the citizens of other EU nations think Britain brings few benefits to the union. As a result, more people on the continent seem happy to see us leave than seem keen for us stay. That, in itself, should worry pro-Europeans profoundly.

Exchanges at the Vilnius summit gave glimpses of the current state of relations between Britain and its partners. The so-called Visegrád Four – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary – posed as the true Europeans as they tore into David Cameron in a statement, reacting to his calls for tougher rules to prevent mass migration within the EU.

The four insisted that eastern Europeans, rather than being a drain on the UK economy and scrounging from the British benefits system, were in fact harder workers and more productive than many Britons. "They are younger and economically more active than the average British workforce; they also contribute to UK national revenues far in excess of the social benefits they use," they said. They also accused Cameron of adopting a selective approach to core EU principles, such as freedom of movement across borders.

Separately, Romania's prime minister, Victor Ponta, reacted to Cameron's pledge of tough new welfare rules for EU migrants, including those expected to arrive in Britain from his country from 1 January, by saying: "We will not accept being treated as second-rate citizens." Britain has always been involved in rows in Europe, but now such talk is more commonplace. Earlier this year, France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, adopted a lofty Gallic tone towards Cameron and Britain. "You can't do Europe à la carte," he said. "I'll take an example which our British friends will understand: let's imagine Europe is a football club and you join, but once you're in it you can't say 'let's play rugby'."

Fabius spoke out after the prime minister pledged that if the Tories won a majority in 2015, he would seek to re-define the terms of UK membership and then hold an in/out referendum in which the people would be asked to approve or reject membership on the new terms, by the end of 2017.

For France and Germany, whatever their differences over the future of the EU – and there have always been many – the political consensus about Europe has held firm between them for well over 60 years. From the founding fathers, who formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, insisting that the pooling of resources would "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible", to the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who described the EU as "a matter of war and peace in the 21st century", to Angela Merkel today, European integration has remained not just an economic cause for the mutual benefit of neighbour nations, but an underlying moral imperative. New members in eastern Europe such as Poland have their concerns, but are broadly very content to be inside.

With the UK it is different. We have always been suspicious but now we seem borderline hostile, and the feeling is mutual. The survey of more than 2,000 people in the UK and over 1,000 in each of Germany, France and Poland, shows a clear parting of the ways. Just 26% of Britons think the EU is, overall, a "good thing" compared with 62% of Poles, 55% of Germans and 36% of French.

Accompanying this anti-EU feeling is an ingrained cultural resistance to the European ideal and the very idea of being European. Just 14% of UK people polled say they regard themselves as European, compared with 48% of Poles, 39% of Germans and 34% of French. Whereas most people in Germany, France and Poland name a fellow European country as their closest ally, the British name fellow English-speaking nations: 33% named the US, 31% Australia and 23% Canada.

Equally striking, in the context of Cameron's attempts to negotiate a new deal for the UK, attitudes to British membership are pretty negative among our partners, who will have to sign off on any future special terms of membership we may want to agree. When asked whether the UK is a positive force in the EU, just 9% of Germans, 15% of French and 33% of Poles say it is. Opposition to giving the UK special membership terms is strongest in Germany, where 44% are against and 16% in favour, with 26% of the French in favour and 36% against. In Poland there is more support, with 38% in favour and 23% against.

Even the prospect of the UK leaving the EU – an outcome that would destabilise the community profoundly – does not seem to worry most German or French people too much. Ever-closer union can live on without the UK. Just 24% of French respondents say a British exit would have a negative effect on the EU, compared with 36% of Germans. Poles were more concerned, with 51% saying the effect would be negative.

The picture is not one of uniform enthusiasm for the EU in the other three countries, and blanket hostility towards the EU in the UK. The polling shows very high levels of concern about the EU's effect on immigration among French and German citizens, as well as among the British: 64% of British people say they regard the EU as having a negative impact on immigration, with 59% of French people and 42% of Germans saying the same. Only 20% of Poles regard the effect on immigration as negative.

And when it comes to the ability to travel easily to other EU nations, even the British are strongly in favour, with 56% saying it is positive and 6% taking a negative view.

On the EU's role in environmental policy, opinion in the UK is quite evenly split, with 34% viewing it positively and 30% saying it is negative. On foreign policy, 22% of Britons are in favour of what the EU does, while 35% are negative.

The gulf between British and German views about Europe's role is demonstrated, perhaps most starkly of all, by the findings on foreign policy: 49% of Germans regard the EU's involvement in foreign affairs as a good thing, against just 10% who are against.

As the UK prepares to admit Romanians and Bulgarians to work and live here from January 1, before European elections next May in which the anti-EU Ukip party is expected to perform strongly, it is difficult to see how the pro-European argument will be able, easily, to break through in the months to come. All three mainstream parties are terrified of Ukip, and aware of the state of public opinion. Next September's referendum on whether the people of Scotland want to stay in the United Kingdom will further test the depth of separatist tendencies. Then will come a general election campaign in which the main parties, again, will have one eye on Nigel Farage's party when drawing up their manifestos. Pro-EU campaign statements will be in short supply.

Last week, the former Tory prime minister Sir John Major said it would be a "truly dreadful outcome for everyone" if Britain were ever to leave the EU.

With opinion as it is, here and in other EU countries, it is also an outcome that now seems entirely possible.

"At the same time, the total numbers of people in Germany and France who support giving Britain a special deal on membership to satisfy British opinion are heavily outnumbered by those who oppose doing so, which suggests that David Cameron may struggle to achieve his hoped-for tailor-made arrangement for the UK."

Shock four-country poll reveals widening gulf between Britain and EUPoll of France

Germany, Poland and the UK shows British hostile to EU, and other nations hostile to Britain

Toby Helm, political editor

The Observer, Sunday 1 December 2013/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/30/shock-poll-reveals-gulf-britain-eu-france-germany-poland-hostile

A powerful cross-party alliance including former Tory foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is calling for an urgent fightback against spiralling anti-European sentiment as a new four-nation poll suggests the UK could be heading out of the EU.

The landmark survey of more than 5,000 voters in the UK, Germany, France and Poland finds British people far more hostile to the EU and its policies than those in the other EU states, and strikingly low support for British membership among people on the continent.

At the same time, the total numbers of people in Germany and France who support giving Britain a special deal on membership to satisfy British opinion are heavily outnumbered by those who oppose doing so, which suggests that David Cameron may struggle to achieve his hoped-for tailor-made arrangement for the UK.

Testing cultural opinions, the poll finds very few British people choose to describe themselves as European. In other EU nations, enthusiasm for the concept of Europeanism is far higher.

Opinium found that just 26% of British voters regard the EU as, overall, a "good thing" compared with 42% who say it is a "bad thing". In Poland 62% say it is a good thing and 13% bad; in Germany 55% good and 17% bad, and in France 36% good and 34% bad.

When asked about the UK's contribution to the EU, there is little enthusiasm among our partners, and little to suggest they will go out of their way to keep us in. Just 9% of Germans and 15% of French people think the UK is a positive influence on the EU, with more Poles, 33%, taking that view.

Only 16% of Germans and 26% of French people back the idea of a special deal being struck for the UK. Cameron has said he intends to renegotiate the UK terms of entry and hold an in/out referendum if he wins a majority at the next election, offering the new arrangement to the British people in a referendum.

The idea of Britain leaving the EU does not appear to worry our European partners unduly. Just 24% of French voters said a UK exit would have a negative effect, compared with 36% of Germans and 51% of Poles.

Rifkind said: "There needs to be a serious debate about the real benefits of – as well as the real problems about – British membership of the EU. Without it we could do serious damage to Britain's interests."

Clegg said next year's European elections represented a key test and attacked those intent on taking Britain out of the EU. He said: "Everybody knows the EU needs reform. But simply carping from the sidelines and flirting with exit undermines British leadership in the EU, fails to deliver reform and leaves Britain increasingly isolated. The debate about Europe is no longer about who is for or against reform – everybody agrees on that – it is between those who believe we can lead in the EU and those who want to head for the exit.

"That's why next year's elections will be so important: the Liberal Democrats will be the leading party of 'in'. It's time we challenged Ukip and large swaths of the Conservative party who want to betray Britain's vital national interest by pulling us out of the world's largest borderless single market, on which millions of jobs depend."

Labour MP and former Europe minister Peter Hain urged pro-Europeans to stand up and fight: "This is a wake-up call for British pro-Europeans that Britain – especially if the Tories win the next election – is heading for an exit from the EU which would be an utter disaster for British jobs, prosperity and influence in the world. But it is equally a wake-up call for the Brussels Bubble, which is totally out of touch with Europe's citizens."

The poll shows concern about immigration to be almost as high in France as in the UK. In Britain, 64% of voters think the EU's immigration policies have a negative effect; 59% say the same in France.

It also reveals that more UK voters feel an affinity with the US than with their European neighbours, whereas our EU partners tend to choose other EU nations. When asked who they would generally support on occasions when there was a disagreement between the US and EU countries, 37% of UK respondent said they would tend to support America; just 10% would generally side with Europe.

British people are not negative about everything the EU does: 54% think free movement rules are good for tourism against 6% who think the reverse. There is also strong endorsement for free-trade benefits. Nearly half of those polled say the absence of customs controls and tariffs on goods and services is an advantage. Only 10% see free trade as a disadvantage.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: "This is a fascinating and comprehensive study into the relative relationships between countries within and about the EU. We, on these islands feel, due to our history as a globally trading nation, much more at home with our cousins in the Anglosphere than we do with our friends on the continent."