Britain has been sparring with Europe ever since it joined the European Community in 1973. Last Friday, the tempestuous relationship changed for good when Prime Minister David Cameron landed a haymaker on Germany and its allies.

The gloves are now off, the fight is real, the hatred genuine.

In Britain—where politicians and the media are celebrating Mr. Cameron’s show of strength, and the consensus is that the nation is wisely distancing itself from a collapsing edifice—this new reality has yet to sink in. Few, it appears, are giving much thought to the frustration and rage set off in Europeans—and how this welling anti-British sentiment might manifest itself in the coming weeks and months.

Since Mr. Cameron’s announcement last Friday, Europe’s media and politicians have reacted with regular barrages of impish caricatures, harsh criticisms, and even veiled threats. Perhaps the most public outlet for the rage has been in the European Parliament. Conservative mep Daniel Hannan was in Parliament this week and reported on the scene. “I wish I could adequately convey the intensity of the anti-British feeling in the European Parliament,” he wrote. “In today’s debate on last week’s Brussels summit, speaker after speaker rose to denounce our entire nation as selfish, narrow-minded and arrogant. … You needed to be present, to hear the yowling and shrieking and desk-banging that accompanied every Anglophobic utterance” (emphasis added throughout).

These weren’t minor or fringe EU officials either. They are the voices of the European Union’s largest political parties!

European officials spoke “vaguely but menacingly of retribution,” noted Hannan. British mep Nigel Farage was also in the European Parliament Tuesday, and reported via Twitter that there was a “real hatred of the UK in the EP chamber today.”

One of the most arresting diatribes came from Guy Verhofstadt, Belgium’s former prime minister and an mep. “When you are invited to a table,” he told Britain, “it is either as a guest or you are part of the menu.”

It’s also obvious that European officials have already figured out how to make Britain pay for its actions. Rebecca Harms, leader of the European Greens, warned that Britain’s “selfish strategy” for protecting London as financial hub “cannot [be] tolerate[d] any longer.” European Economics Commissioner Olli Rehn agreed. If Mr. Cameron’s decision to veto the plan was “intended to prevent bankers and financial corporations of the City from being regulated, that’s not going to happen,” he warned.

Europe, it seems, is about to step up its assault on Britain’s financial sector.

That’s not good news for Britain’s economy. In the 2009/10 tax year, the British government collected £53.4 billion in taxes from its financial services sector. That’s more than 10 percent of its taxes for the year. Last year, Britain’s financial services economy had a £35.2 billion trade surplus, and was the only industry that generated a substantial surplus. According to Hannan, the finance industry “is as important to [Britain] as heavy industry is to Germany or agriculture to France.”

It’s been less than a week since Mr. Cameron’s declaration, and rumors are already circulating that global corporations are thinking about pulling out of London because they fear Brussels will impose legislation that will increase the cost of doing business there. If the officials that spoke in the European Parliament get their way, that’s exactly what will happen!

Britain’s financial sector isn’t the only asset Brussels is considering going after. European officials are openly talking about no longer paying Britain its annual rebate check, which last year amounted to £2.7 billion. “The British check … is now up for question,” stated European People’s Party leader Joseph Daul on Tuesday. “Tax monies should be spent on someone else rather than compensating selfish nationalism.”

Asked if he was declaring financial war, Daul haughtily responded: “There will be no tanks, no Kalashnikovs before Christmas.”

Europe has other means of making life uncomfortable for Britain too. For example, European corporations, many of which are simply extensions of national governments, own a disconcerting number of Britain’s strategic assets and resources. The baa (formerly British Airports Authority), owner of Heathrow Airport, is owned by the Spanish Ferrovial group. Arriva, which operates a large number of Britain’s bus and train services, is owned by Deutsche Bahn. edf Energy is one of Britain’s largest gas and electricity firms, and is owned by the French government via the state-owned edf sa. Npower, another electricity firm, is owned by the German energy giant rwe. Even the car division of Rolls Royce is owned by Volkswagen and bmw. Just last weekend, the Sunday Times reported that German state-owned company dfs is bidding for the British government’s stake in Britain’s air traffic control company.

As relations deteriorate and competition with Britain intensifies, don’t think Europe won’t bring its dominance of these strategic assets into play.

The EU has decisive political power over Britain too.

Using carefully crafted legislation, Brussels has for years been expanding its reach into virtually every nook and cranny of British society. In an effort to not appear too forceful or undemocratic and create a public brouhaha with Britain, the EU’s legislative assault has been slow and deft. Until now!

After Britain’s public revolt last Friday, Brussels no longer has to remain silent. Using qualified majority voting, European officials can continue to create and impose all sorts of painful new legislation on Britain. The only difference is, it no longer has to fear a British backlash and subsequent souring of relations. That has already happened!

Of course, by raising this issue we’re not arguing that Mr. Cameron ought not to have vetoed the German plan to rescue Europe. We’re simply saying that now that Britain has rejected it—making Britain’s expulsion from the EU inevitable—it had better brace itself.

Ever since Britain entered the European Community, European states have for the most part treated it, even if only in public, as an ally. Britain has sparred with Brussels over the years, but as long as it appeared to be an agreeable member of the EU it had to be considered a partner, and subsequently treated—at least in public—with tact, care and at least some measure of respect. But those days are now over. Last Friday Britain effectively took itself out of the EU.

This means that in the minds of European leaders, Britain is no longer an ally. In fact, many now consider it the enemy!

Right now Britain is enjoying the sense of freedom and liberation that comes from standing up to Germany and its allies. But in the coming weeks and months a new feeling will set in. It will be a feeling of fear and dread, and eventually horror. You see, without Britain around slowing things down, Europe’s transformation into a German-led United States of Europe will speed up!

And when that European superstate emerges, the only thing standing between it and Britain will be a tiny strip of water!

When Britain first entered the European Community, way back in 1973, Herbert W. Armstrong delivered a remarkable warning. “Britain is going to look back on Monday, Jan. 1, 1973, in all probability, as a most tragically historic date—a date fraught with ominous potentialities!” he wrote (Plain Truth, March 1973).

Today, Britain is coming face to face with those “ominous potentialities.” What will Britain do as the EU increasingly undermines Britain’s financial sector? As it imposes more rules and legislation on British society? And as Europe, under German leadership, makes decisions that it is powerless to stop?

Britain needs to stop celebrating, start praying and realize: Now that it is no longer dining with Germany and its allies at Europe’s table, it is on the menu, waiting to be devoured!