British citizens love the EU

An interesting poll about British attitudes has been conducted. You can find the original poll data here (as a pdf). Summaries of the poll results can be found at E!sharp and here is a summary form the blog Gulf Stream Blues.

Some interesting results:

...though only 37% of survey respondents said they have a positive image of the EU, 48% said that the British media has a negative bias against it....When asked how much the UK contributes to the EU’s budget, the average said that it was 23% of Britain’s gross national income. It’s actually 0.2%. Yet only 6% of respondents said they believed it was under 3%.

And overall there are many areas where majorities think EU involvement is a good thing:

Respondents were pretty evenly split on whether the benefits of membership outweighed the drawbacks. But they did see a role for the EU in issues of cross-border impact, with around four in every five supporting its involvement in protecting human rights, and in dealing with climate change, terrorism and the financial crisis. Questioned on whether certain initiatives had benefited Britain specifically, clear majorities gave the thumbs up to the single market (67 percent), environmental legislation (58 percent) and the greater clout accruing to the country in world trade negotiations. Even 49 percent said working conditions had improved (against 46 percent who did not).