More than half of the population believe the EU to be harmful to Britain, and less than a third want us to retain our EU membership, a new poll has revealed.

The Angus Reid survey found that 54 per cent of respondents think EU membership has been negative for the United Kingdom, while only 33 per cent deem it positive.

Almost half (46 per cent) said they would vote to leave the EU if a referendum were called, and only 29 per cent said they would vote to stay in.

Unsurprisingly, opposition towards the faltering single currency is also at a high.

The proportion of Britons who would be willing to adopt the euro as the national currency remains in single digits (six per cent), while four-in-five (81 per cent) would vote against any change.

Respondents between 18–34 years of age are more likely to believe that EU membership has been positive for Britain (45 per cent) than middle-aged respondents (31 per cent) and those over the age of 55 (24 per cent). However, the notion of joining the eurozone is rejected by sizeable majorities in all three age demographics.

A majority of Britons have expressed negative views on the EU in five separate surveys conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion since December 2010.

Previous investigations by other groups have recorded similar results, with polls by ICM/Guardian (October 2011) and YouGov (March 2012) both demonstrating that the majority of the British public want out of the EU. Ryan Bourne, an analyst at the London-based think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), noted that the British public is more eurosceptic than the government.

"A lot of people have the belief that as a sovereign nation, our laws should be determined through our own democratic institutions," he said, "People realise that in order to get out of the crisis we need growth, but they think some of the laws coming out of Brussels actually kill growth."

The online survey was conducted from 9 August to 10 August and questioned a national sample of 2,004 British adults.

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