Reuters In Tunbridge Wells, a typically English small town south of London, workers and shoppers around the modern shopping mall talk readily about their frustrations with the EU and their desire for a referendum that could lead Britain to the exit. Alarm over the euro zone debt crisis has driven hostility to the European Union to new heights in Britain, where voters in the rural heartlands are increasingly ready to say they want to leave the 27-nation bloc after a difficult 38 years. Despite public fears, finance minister George Osborne has insisted Britain will not contribute to any euro zone bailout fund and Prime Minister David Cameron believes it is in Britain's interest to remain in the EU's single market where it conducts more than half of its trade. Unhappiness with Britain's weak economy may be finding an outlet in criticism of the EU. Unemployment is rising, inflation high and growth stagnant as the coalition government slashes public spending to rein in a big budget deficit. The historic spa town of around 55,000 people, popular with London commuters, is a stronghold of Cameron's Conservative Party, many of whose legislators feel equally strongly that Britain needs to radically rethink its ties with the EU or quit. About 80 Conservative lawmakers - more than a quarter of the total - defied Cameron this week by voting for a referendum that could have opened the way for Britain leaving or renegotiating the terms of its membership of the EU. Although the referendum proposal was easily defeated in parliament, the clamor for a public vote in Britain is only going to get stronger after euro zone leaders agreed this week to look at “limited” changes to the EU treaty to strengthen fiscal integration in response to the debt crisis. Many Britons have long been suspicious of the EU, worrying that Britain's independence and identity risks being drowned by an ever more powerful European super-state, but recent polls indicate that the hostility has reached new highs. The European Commission's Eurobarometer surveys regularly find that Britons have the most negative view of Europe among the 27 member nations. In its latest survey, only 35 percent of Britons thought EU membership was beneficial. Hugo Brady, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform think tank, said the overwhelming popular feeling in Britain was that Europe was a hindrance and the country would be freer and better able to compete globally without the link. “The reality is that Britain would be far less able to wield its influence (outside the EU). The EU, flawed as it is, is the only game in town in Europe,” said Brady, a former Irish government official. Britain still has strong economic and cultural ties with other English-speaking countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia. But it now conducts more than half of its trade within the EU and would suffered economically if it lost its privileged access to the vast single market. __
