The British public is fed up with Europe. According to a new poll, 7 out of 10 Britons are so fed up that they want the British government to simply start ignoring EU legislation. Sixty percent believe that Britain should then refuse to pay any fines imposed.

“Our polling shows that people are more Euroskeptic than ever—they are ready for an EU revolt,” said Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, one of the groups that carried out the survey.

Fifty-seven percent of Britons said they want Britain to take back powers from Brussels. Seventy-five percent said that any decision to give more power to Europe—through the Lisbon Treaty, for example—should be put to a referendum.

“Voters are sick of the huge cost of the EU’s wasteful policies and corrupt institutions,” Elliot said, “and want to see the British government stand up to Brussels for once. Our politicians should start fighting the taxpayers’ corner by breaking the EU’s absurd rules and refusing to pay any fines they throw at us. Instead of trying to force through a treaty that no one wants, the government should be taking back powers and telling the EU to stop its costly meddling.”

The influence of the disgruntled British public will increasingly be felt by British politicians. With European parliamentary elections a month away, Britain’s Euroskeptic United Kingdom Independence Party (ukip) is predicted to receive 17 percent of the vote—the same as the ruling Labor Party—according to a recent poll. The backlash against Britain’s larger political parties and swing toward smaller parties like ukip is expected to intensify.

Britain’s mainstream parties have been implicated in ruinous expenses scandals, where MPs have been caught claiming as parliamentary expenses everything from Kit Kats to private moat drenching. Some commentators argue that the EU plays a central part in the public outrage. In the Times, columnist Camilla Cavendish wrote May 22,

[I]t is the absence of power, it seems to me, that is an important part of public outrage. Westminster has given up so much power—to Europe, to quangos [quasi autonomous non-government organizations], to judges—that people wonder what they are paying for. Half the time, a big issue comes up and politicians say it’s not their responsibility.

European legislation is wreaking havoc on the British legal system. Just last week, for example, the Court of Appeals in London ruled that the European Convention on Human Rights applied to British soldiers serving abroad. “Judges rejected a government appeal against extending the act to service personnel overseas and declared that ‘right to life’ enshrined in the law meant [Britain’s] Ministry of Defense could be held legally liable if it failed to provide suitable equipment and medical care in combat situations,” the Independent reported. In practice, no one really knows what this means, and many fear it could open the floodgates to all kinds of bizarre lawsuits in which family members of military servicemen sue the government for failing to secure a soldier’s “right to life” on the battlefield. (Read Ron Fraser’s column this week for more on this subject.)

The British public is not just infuriated at Brussels’s judicial invasion. As Cavendish noted, membership in the EU comes with tremendous monetary cost. Britain pays £6.5 billion (us$10.3 billion) a year to the EU, and has spent £106 billion (us$167.5 billion) since 1998 to implement regulations driven by EU directives, according to a recent study by think tank Open Europe.

It seems the British public has had enough. How long will it be before this growing anti-EU sentiment causes Britain to split from Europe? That’s the outcome we have been expecting for years, based on biblical prophecy—whether Britain leaves or is kicked out.

For more information, see our article “Britain Was Warned.”