Delegates at an annual rally of the governing Conservative Party this week are looking to the continent's economic woes as an opportunity to revive old debates about Britain's relationship with Europe.
Costly bailouts and meddling judges are cited as new evidence to support the long cherished goal of Britain's skeptics: Leaving the European Union.
"The tide is moving irrevocably towards a referendum, regardless of whether or not the prime minister wants one," Conservative Party lawmaker Douglas Carswell told a meeting on the sidelines of the annual rally.
In a debate in Britain's Parliament expected to take place next month, legislators will demand a national vote on whether to join nations like Norway and Switzerland outside the bloc.
It would be the first poll on ties to Europe since 1975, when the U.K. voted in favor of remaining in the then European Economic Community.
Critics sense that Europe's financial gloom gives them their best chance of leading Britain away from the Brussels-based EU, which they accuse of imposing regulations that often contradict the wishes of the country's elected lawmakers.
"Skepticism toward the European Union has never been as popular as it is today," Timo Soini, leader of Finland's deeply euroskeptic party The Finns _ previously known as True Finns _ told a sideline meeting at the rally. Like-minded legislators from other nations often travel to Britain's political conventions to discuss strategy and debate ideas.
Britain's role in Europe was once a bitterly divisive issue for Prime Minister David Cameron's Tories, with the 1980s and 1990s marked by internal conflicts between those advocating closer links with the EU and legislators who favored leaving the now-27 nation bloc.
Former Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher famously railed against a "European super
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