Brexit beckons as 97% of Britons think David Cameron can't get a better EU deal

The UK could be on the cusp of leaving the European Union as the latest poll shows that a majority of Britons do not believe that Prime Minister David Cameron can secure a "better deal" with the 28-nation bloc.

According to a poll on the Daily Express website, over 97% of the 1,926 people who took part in the survey said "no" when asked if Cameron would get "Britain a fair deal in the EU."

Britain's Conservative party pledged to deliver a simple in/out referendum by 2017 if it won the General Election this year. Now that it has, Cameron and his party are allegedly looking to push forward the vote to 2016 as business lobby groups and analysts have remarked that the uncertainty over Britain's membership will have an adverse affect on the economy.

This month ING's senior economist James Knightley said that UK GDP growth in 2017 could be half a point lower, regardless of the outcome of the referendum, because the uncertainty over the referendum will cause projects and investments to be put on hold until there is a clear result.

Yesterday, French newspaper Le Monde reported that Germany and France sidestepped Cameron's demands to renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty and instead sealed a pact to "integrate the eurozone without reopening the EU's treaties." The Lisbon Treaty is the successor to the European Union Constitution, which became law in 2009. It includes heightened powers for the European Commission, European Parliament and European Court of Justice. It also opened the doors for more freedom of movement between EU members and greater control from Brussels over the final say on asylum applications.

Meanwhile, anti-Brussels party UKIP, which received more votes than the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party combined at the UK General Election with 3.8 million, said Cameron won't even "get close" to securing independence or a better deal with the EU.