My speech in Switzerland on the EU, 27 May

...and the similarities between the UK and Swiss positions

I haven’t used this Substack much so far, but may post some things here in future. The first such is a translation of a speech I gave in Switzerland last week to the Kompass-Kongress, a large political meeting organised by the incipient Swiss campaign of opposition to ratification of the recent set of Treaties agreed with the EU by the Swiss government. The video (in German) is available on my X feed.

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“Thank you for asking me to speak at today’s Kompass-Kongress. It is a great pleasure to be here in Switzerland once again. Thank you for your very warm welcome - and for tolerating in this speech both my poor Hochdeutsch and my English accent!

I will begin by saying what I am not here to do. I am not here to tell you how to run your EU referendum. And I am certainly not here to tell you how to vote in it. You don’t need my advice on that. Switzerland has been a democracy as long as Britain has and has been at least as successful. We all know the Swiss people are capable of making their own mind up on politics, and your political and economic success is testimony to the value of a country having the ability to decide its own affairs for itself.

I am here to do something different. It’s to tell you the truth about Britain’s experience of leaving the EU. To explain where I see similarities between our situation and yours. And, on the back of my experience as Britain’s EU negotiator during the Brexit period, to suggest what will be important in your debate about the new Framework Treaty, and why.

So, what has Britain’s experience of Brexit been?

I have found in my visits to Switzerland that people often have a very negative impression of the British experience. The years of black propaganda about Britain’s exit from the EU have sunk in.

I do understand why. We certainly did not leave the EU in the most straightforward way. That’s because unfortunately most of the British governing classes did not want to leave at all, or else wanted to keep as close to the EU as possible. That led the country into its biggest constitutional crisis for a hundred years. Only Boris Johnson and I had the political authority to fix it and to implement the result of our 2016 referendum.

But I say to you - don’t let this earlier disarray hide what has happened since. Politically, Britain is now a properly independent country. Whether they admit it or not, people have got used to Brexit. Our parliament and our politics have come back to life. We debate things that used to be reserved to, or heavily influenced by, the EU. Things like trade policy, farms policy, food standards, regional support, VAT, state aid, migration, citizenship, and more. We can do that because we now actually control them.

Of course, this freedom means the ability to make our own mistakes. We certainly made a big one when we used our new control of immigration policy to introduce a liberal visa policy and the fastest ever wave of inward migration. That was a big error, but it was nothing to do with Brexit. Outside the EU, we have control. We can - and will - correct the error.

Don’t believe the economic myths either. The British government is currently blaming its economic problems on Brexit. But when you look at the figures you can’t even see Brexit as a bump in the chart. If you could, we wouldn’t be still arguing about the issue. We certainly have economic problems, and our performance since the 2008 financial crash has been poor. But we continue to match France and grow faster than Germany, our nearest competitors. There has been no hit to the economy.

Our problem is bad policy. The highest taxation and spending burdens since the Second World War, the import of millions of relatively unproductive immigrants, and the deliberate destruction of many of our energy-intensive industries through an insanely tough net zero policy. These are our underlying difficulties. We can put them right. But first we have to elect a government that wants to.

So I urge you - don’t believe the Brexit propaganda.

Getting an accurate understanding in this way of Britain’s real situation is important. That’s because I see many similarities between the positions of Britain and Switzerland with regard to the EU.

Switzerland, of course, is central to the European continent. Britain is peripheral. But geography does not determine everything. Through different routes we have ended in similar, though not identical, positions.

Switzerland has of course had some limited involvement in significant EU mechanisms for some time - free movement, goods and agrifood regulation, Schengen, and so on.

Britain aspired to leave the EU entirely. But the domestic opposition to Brexit meant we didn’t achieve it as fully as we wanted. In particular, the complicated exit debate has left one part of Britain, Northern Ireland, stuck in the EU’s customs union and much of the single market. This means we have a customs and regulatory border through the middle of our country.

So we both, Britain and Switzerland, unfortunately, have a toe in the warm but debilitating bath of EU rules.

And this sets up two dynamics.

First, people say “we can’t afford to lose what we have. The damage will be too great. We can’t afford to offend the EU.” Businesses talk up the risk of trade disruption every time there is a problem with Brussels. So people get nervous and start making concessions simply to keep things we already have. That’s why our government agreed to give away EU access to our fishing waters for another 12 years - just to get into negotiations.

Second, the situation means all sorts of lobbies spring up to go further. You find people saying “We are part of EU policy in area A, wouldn’t it be easier to be in it in area B too?” Transnational networks of EU lawyers will press for the extension of EU doctrine on the grounds of simplicity. There’s always pressure to go further.

That’s why we both have governments that want to do exactly that. In Britain, our government is allowing Britain to be sucked back into the EU’s foreign and defence policy arrangements, a situation which benefits the EU much more than Britain. It is agreeing an unbalanced free movement scheme for young people. And worst of all it has agreed to rejoin the single market in food, in carbon pricing, and in electricity, without a say in setting rules, on the basis of dynamic alignment. And who knows what else may follow.

I see many similarities here with the new Swiss Agreement, which also includes “dynamic alignment” in food standards, on transport, on electricity trading, on citizens’ rights, immigration, and free movement rules. In all these areas, you will have to implement EU laws with no say and are subject to arrangements for resolving disputes which will in practice give the European Court of Justice the final say.

So both of us are integrated some way into the EU system. Both of us face new Treaties which will take things further. You at least will get a referendum on these arrangements. We in Britain will not. Those of us in both our countries who are doubtful about the wisdom of further EU integration have an interest in sticking together.

What can we do about it? Our domestic political debates are different, and as I say I would not dream of intervening in yours. But my experience of dealing with the EU over my whole career, first as a diplomat and then as a politician, has taught me two things.

The first is that the EU never gives powers back. Within the EU, no power has ever been returned to member states. They are also very reluctant to weaken their own agreements with third countries and it is an explicit goal to extend their own laws and regulations around the world. The pain we went through shows how firmly they defend these things. So my first message is “Be careful.” It’s easier to give powers away than get them back again.

The second is that EU negotiators can sense weakness. They can tell when a country is nervous about standing up for itself, and they exploit it. They like to think that it is they who are making all the concessions, that they are graciously extending benefits to you, rather than the reality, which is that they are extending their own power and control. You only get from the EU what you want if you say clearly what you want. So my second message is: “Don’t be frightened.” Standing up for yourself works.

So my conclusion is as follows.

Be careful. Don’t be frightened. And above all I say: think carefully. Switzerland has a long and proud history of defending national freedom and national democracy. It’s easier to give it away than to get it back.

So I say again: think carefully.

Think hard - and I wish you and Switzerland all the very best of luck in navigating these very difficult decisions in the right way.

Thank you very much.”