Article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.

In what could be labeled a Brexit “domino effect,” a stunning new Ipsos poll of over 6,000 Europeans revealed that almost half (45 percent) believe that their own country should hold a referendum on EU membership, with nearly the same amount believing that Brexit will result in the U.K. leaving the European Union (EU).

The Brexit is a commonly used term for a British exit from the EU, with a public referendum on the U.K.’s membership in the EU to be held on June 23, 2016.

Nearly half (45 percent) of Europeans surveyed believe their own country should hold a referendum on its EU membership, and with 48 percent saying that a ‘Brexit’ would spark a contagion effect of other states leaving the EU .

The survey data was compiled based on online interviews with over 11,000 individuals aged 16-64 in the nine EU member states of the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Poland and Hungary, as well as five other non-European countries: the US, Canada, Australia, India and South Africa.

The nine EU countries surveyed represent “around three-quarters of the EU population and approximately 80 percent of its GDP,” according to Ipsos Mori.

The majority of those surveyed thought Britain leaving the EU would do more harm to the EU than it will to the UK, with 40 percent of Europeans foreseeing a reduced EU membership by 2020.

Half (49 percent) of the Europeans living outside the UK surveyed, believe Britain will vote to leave the EU – which is 14 percent higher than the number of Britons who think they’ll leave (35 percent).

The results varied widely by country, with just 22 percent of Poles saying they would vote to leave the EU, while 48 percent of Italians, 41 percent of French people and 39 percent of Swedes said they would vote to leave the EU in such a referendum.

“The Italians in particular hope to have their own opportunity to go to the polls on their EU membership — which lends a sense that even if the vote does stick with the status quo in June, it will not be the end of the EU’s woes,” said Bobby Duffy, managing director of social research as Ipsos Mori.

Although the polling indicates an unhappiness with the current EU framework, generally, Europeans were more supportive of holding referendums than actually voting to leave the bloc. Italy came closest to an “out” vote, with 48 percent saying they wanted to leave. In France, 41 per cent would vote to quit the EU, while only 34 per cent wanted to do so in Germany.

British Prime Minister David Cameron argued Monday that a Brexit would risk peace in Europe, emotionally referencing the “the serried rows of white headstones in lovingly tended Commonwealth war cemeteries,” which “stand as silent testament to the price this country has paid to help restore peace and order in Europe.”

He warned that “isolationism has never served this country well. Whenever we turn our back on Europe, sooner or later we come to regret it. We have always had to go back in, and always at much higher cost.”

Of course, there is a significant difference between isolationism and choosing to not be beholden to a federalist Europe that was the brainchild of the American intelligence apparatus. Declassified documents tell us about the origins of the European project and its progress since the Truman administration.

In the midst of the cold war, the United States and its European allies conceived the EU as the political concomitant of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Perhaps that is why in a letter to The Times of London, 13 former U.S. secretaries of state, defense and national security advisers warned that the Britain’s “place and influence in the world would be diminished and Europe would be dangerously weakened” after a vote to leave in next month’s referendum.

The letter from defense and diplomatic chiefs of every White House administration for over  the past 40 years warned that Britain must not bank on its “special relationship” with the United States to compensate for losing global influence by leaving the EU.

The threats from the American Empire reveal that the U.S. is not keen to lose its “Trojan Horse” in the EU anytime soon, and is willing to lean on their U.K. counterparts to achieve their strategic geopolitical security framework goals.

The “European project” has always been an American project. The reality is that the U.S. has a considerably easier task in controlling a Europe with one central government than it is dealing with dozens of separate sovereign states; each with their own interests and agendas.

Make no mistake that this Brexit vote is critical to the survival of the longest running CIA operation in history — the EU — begun in the Truman administration. The referendum on June 23 may very well be the defeat of a clandestine operation that most people never even realized existed.