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Poll: Plurality of Britons favor EU exit

London's Big Ben clock tower is seen on the eve of its 150th birthday in London on May 30, 2009. Big Ben is the biggest chiming clock tower in the world and its bong measures 118 decibels. The minute hand is 14ft long (4.672m) and the hour hand 9ft long (2.7432M). It is wound up by hand three times a week. (UPI Photo/Hugo Philpott)
London's Big Ben clock tower is seen on the eve of its 150th birthday in London on May 30, 2009. Big Ben is the biggest chiming clock tower in the world and its bong measures 118 decibels. The minute hand is 14ft long (4.672m) and the hour hand 9ft long (2.7432M). It is wound up by hand three times a week. (UPI Photo/Hugo Philpott) | License Photo

LONDON, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- Nearly half of British residents say they favor leaving the European Union if the question were put to a referendum, a poll indicated.

Forty-six percent of British citizens asked said they would pull out of the EU, a survey by Canadian firm Angus Reid released Tuesday found.

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Results indicated 54 percent of Britons said they believe the last 40 years of British membership in the European Union has had a "negative" effect on the country and 81 percent said they were glad the euro wasn't the country's currency, EUobserver.com reported.

The numbers are similar to December 2010, when 48 percent of people surveyed said they wanted Britain to leave the European Union.

Amid talk among EU ministers of a new banking union and political union, a British Foreign Office spokesman told EUobserver.com that under the EU Act of 2011 a referendum automatically is triggered "if any of these changes result in a transfer of competence from the U.K. to the EU."

EUObserver.com did not report the parameters of the August Reid survey.

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