BREXIT - Switzerland Voted 'NOT' to Join the EU as Member on 1 March 2016 and is this a Pointer to the British People What they Should do on 23 June 2016

       
      Turkey will be a part of the EU and have free-passage to the UK through EU Visas in the very near future. So that means that 75 million Turkish people will have access together with those coming from the Middle-East conflict having an easier access to come to Britain over the next 5 years. You have been warned !


On the 1 March 2016, after 24 years of engagement with the EU since 1992, Switzerland voted 126 to 46 in their Parliament to withdraw the application to join the EU. Therefore the Swiss have seen sense and where they are now going it alone, making their own trade agreements with any nation in the world and even still with the EU. This makes a mockery of the those in the UK who wish to stay in the EU with regard to trade and where Britain too can negotiate trade deals outside the EU or within the European Union.

But the decision by Switzerland to not join the EU is a clear indication that the EU is not working, for if it were, they would have certainly wanted to stay in the EU as it is its largest trading partner. Therefore why has Switzerland decided to leave the EU behind and go it alone? For they certainly cannot fear any backlash from their main trading partner.

For the answer to the reasons why, the following Swiss article may enlighten the reasons why and educate those who think that it is better to stay in the EU. The article is entitled, 'Swiss Parliament decides to withdraw the application to join the EU' - http://www.lukas-reimann.ch/ger_details_1176/_Swiss_Parliament_decides_to_withdraw_the_application_to_join_the_EU.html
 

Today is the end of an era for the Europhiles: For years Switzerland has had a request pending to join the Union. But today the country quietly let that application lapse. Its citizens can all see for themselves one of the differences between being in the EU or being outside it.
 

Switzerland applied to join the European Union on 16 Mai 1992. In Brussels, the Government of Switzerland signed an official application to join the EU. The signatures have never been suspended and the application was not formally withdrawn. Switzerland has been applying for EU membership for 24 years.

The people voted in different referendums against becoming closer to the greedy EU law. But the Government said, the people’s vote did not oblige them to stop accession negotiations with the EU and in future the situation could change. Europhiles have warned for years about the dangers of Switzerland remaining outside the EU. But today Switzerland is stronger and freer as a result of being outside, rather than inside the EU. Independence and non-bureaucratic flexibility is an important part of the Swiss success. Today Swiss polls find those keen on EU membership dwindling in the 5 per cents and today there is an important change in Swiss politics that has been controversially disputed for many years:

Nobody seems to be interested in becoming a member in the coming billions and trillions of years far into the future: The Swiss parliament passed a proposition created by the EU-sceptical National Councillor (MP) Lukas Reimann, to withdraw the request of 1992. It is hardly surprising that the EU looks like an ever less attractive club to join. What, after all, is the appeal of joining a club into which the entire world can apparently move?

The vote of the Federal Assembly about this motion ended with a 126 “Yes” and a 46 “No”. Now the senate (second chamber) will discuss the proposition. Then the Swiss Government has to dissolve its accession team and stop its application to join the EU. 
Switzerland had been brutally treated as a nation aspiring to join the EU, in all its negotiations. It had to accept idiotic bureaucracy in the previous era of the Europhiles. Now Switzerland is a more independent nation and in a better position to negotiate with the EU.

“This is a clear and historical message from the Swiss parliament to British voters. We wish you the best of luck for Brexit. These days, Switzerland is called Britzerland because Swiss people support the Brexit”, said MP Lukas Reimann. He pointed out: “A big advantage of leaving the EU, is free trade worldwide, not only between the member states, making it easier and cheaper for British companies to export their goods to the rest of the world. 


The boost to income outweighs the billions of pounds in membership fees that Britain would save if it left the EU. The UK can have even more of its important negotiation power internationally, by leaving the trading bloc: It would be free to establish trade agreements with non-EU countries worldwide. Worldwide, Switzerland has many more free trade agreements than with the EU. A well-educated scientist moved from Britain to the EU-free zone of Switzerland to set up his own company. Within a few hours, he could completely establish his own first company without expensive lawyers and accountants - even they can’t know all the regulations from Brussels. 

The vast majority of small and medium-sized firms do not trade with the EU but are restricted by a huge regulatory burden imposed from abroad. Leaving the EU makes the United Kingdom more open to the world without being bound or enslaved by EU laws on areas such as agriculture, justice and home affairs. The era of the EU application is over for Switzerland. And the era of the EU membership could be over soon for Britain. 


This is Britain's chance of the century for a better future and for prosperity!

Euro scepticism is increasing all over Europe. The EU is hopelessly out of date and utterly incapable of coping with the challenges of the 21st century. A courageous and visionary Brexit is the beginning of freedom and prosperity in the whole of Europe! The almost interminable money sent to the EU without real transparency and without real accountability could be used to modernise Britain instead.

Switzerland and the UK have enjoyed close relations for a long time. Ever since the 18th century, British politicians have made much of Switzerland's neutrality on the European continent and repeatedly took Switzerland's side when dealing with other European powers. The Cantonal Tree erected just off Leicester Square, London, England celebrates the friendly relations between Britain and Switzerland. Brexit will make this traditional friendship better and more successful than ever. British and Swiss people are clever: They know why Europe is the most fascinating continent because of diversity, human rights, competition between the states and freedom. I wish you a courageous and visionary referendum!

Author 
Sandro Wächter, Brugg, Switzerland (Twitter: @sandro_waechter) in cooperation with Swiss MP Lukas Reimann, Wil, www.lukas-reimann.ch

Further informations
Swiss TV about the vote: http://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/nationalrat-will-eu-beitrittsgesuch-zurueckziehen

For a further insight to why the Swiss do not want to be a member of the European Union can be gleaned from 'The Spectator' article, 'The other side of the Alps: living and investing in Switzerland - The politically-savvy Swiss are so happy they stayed out of EU' by Elliot Wilson - http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/the-other-side-of-the-alps-living-and-investing-in-switzerland/

 

Switzerland has always been different: something of a sovereign interloper, the guest in the corner of a party that no one remembers inviting. Live here long enough and you begin to see the contradictions at work. People with an almost pathological aversion to confrontation, yet who own more guns per person than any country bar America, Serbia and Yemen. Rural craftsmen eking out simple lives assembling Rolex watches. A love of both money and thrift. One of the world’s most advanced economies, which closes down entirely on Sundays.

Yet perhaps the most glaring paradox is the nation’s relationship with the continent around it. The Swiss never quite ‘got’ the European project. They weren’t an original signatory to the European Coal and Steel Community. Nor did they join the European Economic Community, opting instead to cut a free-trade agreement with the bloc in 1973, the year Britain joined. In 1992, a national referendum to join Norway and Iceland on the subs’ bench as members of the European Economic Area was defeated by the narrowest of margins.

Brussels prodded and prompted, but to no avail. Switzerland signed up to the Schengen Agreement (a decision that, with the advent of the migrant crisis, it now rather regrets), but never entertained the thought of swapping the Swiss franc for the euro. In another plebiscite in February 2014, the country voted to limit the number of inbound ‘migrants’, a label attached even to white-collar workers from western EU states. A UK vote in favour of Brexit would be a cue for Swiss legislators to thrash out a new deal on migrant quotas with Brussels.

To understand Switzerland’s antipathy to outsiders, you just need to glance at its history. Wave after wave of foreign antagonists, from the Hapsburgs to Napoleon to the Nazis, have invaded, occupied or stared menacingly over the mountain passes, instilling a ferocious sense of independence. It’s easy to forget this is less a country and more a hodgepodge of 26 cantons, ranging from the mighty Zurich, population just under 1.5 million, to tiny Appenzell Innerrhoden, with just 15,854 — the female half of whom only won the vote in 1991. ‘This is a country that had no capital or national parliament until 1848; federalism is deeply rooted in the Swiss mentality,’ says Diccon Bewes, British author of Swiss Watching. ‘People think of themselves as Bernese or Genevois until they go abroad, which is when they become “Swiss”.’

Over time, notes Lorne Baring — managing director of B Capital, an asset-management company in Geneva and London — the Swiss ‘carved out their own robust, successful and well-defined model of sovereignty. It’s a system based on a politically savvy electorate that is content to make their own decisions.’

Little wonder Brussels and Bern, the seat of Swiss government, never saw eye to eye. And the longer the European project staggers on, the greater the vindication felt by the citizens of Lausanne and Lucerne. ‘The average Swiss looks at Europe with horror,’ says Bewes. ‘They see no growth, huge debts, the disaster that is Greece, a crumbling currency, the north paying for a fiscally irresponsible south. And the general reaction is: we made the right decision not to join.’

The Swiss are typically highly informed about political issues, with a robust grasp of the long-term implications of fiscal decisions. ‘Political culture holds that it’s better to devolve power to the local level,’ says Daniel Kalt, the chief economist for Switzerland at UBS. ‘That federal power plus direct democracy helps instill discipline in fiscal policy across the country.’

This kantönligeist, a word that translates directly as a ‘spirit of federalism’ and more broadly as pride in running local affairs, also imbues the country with competitive bite. ‘Cantons compete with each other to attract the best companies and the best taxpayers,’ says Kalt. By contrast, the Swiss view the EU as ‘an extension of the French obsession with centralised control, which reduces competition. That’s not what we want at all.’

But kantönligeist can only get you so far. After a blessed decade during which Switzerland benefited from a weak franc and an inflow of skilled workers (nurses from France, doctors from Germany), darkling clouds have begun to gather. Much of this is due to the perpetual weakness of the eurozone, the largest buyer of Swiss-made goods. When the Swiss National Bank unpegged the franc from the euro early last year in the run-up to the launch of European QE, the franc soared. Investors rushed to buy a currency described by Charles Sizemore of Dallas-based Sizemore Capital Management as ‘the ultimate safe haven, the ultimate hedge against volatility’. The price of Swiss goods rose sharply, hitting exporters and an already embattled tourism industry. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry — a barometer of the wider economy — exports fell 3.3 per cent year-on-year in January, the first monthly fall since 2009. Marco Estermann of SIX, the country’s leading stock exchange, expects unemployment to rise over the next few years as growth slows.

Switzerland has also faced attacks on its rigid secrecy laws, which protect investors but act as camouflage for extracurricular activities from money-laundering to tax evasion. Washington passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in 2010, expressly to prevent Americans from parking untaxed earnings offshore; the pain was felt not by Swiss banks, which continue to profit from global upheaval, but US expats. ‘The problem for a US national living in Switzerland is finding a bank willing to take them on as a client,’ says Sizemore. ‘This is really too bad, because Swiss banks… are particularly good at serving the needs of people who travel regularly or have business dealings in multiple jurisdictions.’

2,000 - Number of global firms with HQs in Switzerland

3.3% - Year-on-year fall in Swiss watch exports in January 2016

$84,815 - Swiss GDP per capita, 2013

Yet Switzerland will survive, adapting in its adamantine way to the lurching and listing of the outside world. Major industrial firms will move more production to eastern Europe and Asia to trim costs, while keeping their board and executives firmly planted on Swiss soil. ‘There are around 2,000 global corporates headquartered here, not just letterbox companies but real structures,’ notes Estermann. They come for the low tax rates, and stay for the high quality of life. Glencore, the FTSE-listed but Baar-based global commodity giant, springs to mind. Nor is the nation’s reputation for money-management likely to come under threat, despite negative yields on Swiss government bonds, low returns on other domestic financial instruments and a slowdown of the local property market. Buying a Swiss chalet was ‘a real money-maker over the past decade,’ says Baring. ‘That moment has now passed.’

But good investment opportunities remain. Estermann points to the host of leading Zurich-listed multi-nationals, from GPS chip-maker U-blox to specialty chemicals firms Syngenta, EMS-Chemie and Clariant, plus industrial giants ABB and Schindler. Sizemore notes that the iShares SMI, an exchange-traded fund that gives investors access to a weighted basket of the largest Swiss stocks, is on track to deliver dividend income of around 4 per cent in 2016.

Then there are the likes of food giant Nestlé and drug makers Novartis and Roche, corporate rocks on which the Swiss economy is built. ‘You really can’t lose with Nestlé,’ says Sizemore. ‘It will still be around in a hundred years’ time, making stuff you need to replace on a daily basis. Who knows if Google will still be around then, but you can be pretty sure that your grandchildren will still be eating chocolate and drinking bottled water.’ He adds that for all their recent woes, Switzerland’s big banks, Credit Suisse and UBS, are trading at valuations ‘that would have seemed crazy pre-financial crisis. They are a decent buying option down the line.’

But perhaps the best reason to invest here right now is that Switzerland is a great environment for bear investors. ‘If you see the world as a bad place that will get worse, having a Swiss bank account is a great move,’ says Baring. ‘Around 35 per cent of clients are UK-based non-doms, so they need to put their money to work in a safe place that’s outside but not far from Britain, and a place that is in Europe but not part of the EU. Switzerland fits the bill perfectly.’

Stop Press - Cameron Forced to put in the Queen's Speech or suffer defeat in parliament if he did not exclude the NHS from the TTIP trade negotiations

Cameron was forced to include a clause yesterday (19.05.16) so that the NHS was excluded in the TTIP negotiations. This should tell everyone that he is working for the corporations, as the TTIP is a corporate treaty in reality and why should he have had to be forced to do this if the TTIP is so good for the people?

But he is having to do this under duress. Unfortunately for the NHS this will not stop the EU from privatising the NHS over a relatively short period of time when we have signed to stay in the EU and where because the TTIP makes it clear that 'MONOPOLIES' cannot exist, the EU will demand that the NHS is privatised.

And Britain will not be able to do a single thing against this, as we would then be trapped inside an all-powerful EU and under their total control. Don't believe me, return here in a mere 10 years time to see that all the above has unfortunately come true if we stay in the EU. For only by voting OUT can the NHS be saved and that is ultimately the truth.

I just wish people would wake up to the reality of the EU and where we shall definitely not be able to save the NHS and anything else for that matter that we cherish so much, once we sign to stay in the EU. For this time it will be forever.

Dr David Hill

CEO, World Innovation Foundation

19 March 2016 (updated 20 May 2016)

Reference:

1. 'Brexit: efficient Swiss find EU affairs run nothing like clockwork' - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/07/brexit-efficient-swiss-find-eu-affairs-run-nothing-like-clockwor/

2. 'EU referendum: Can Switzerland show UK route to Brexit?' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35615604 (note that this is the only article that was reported by the BBC on the Swiss not wanting to join the EU and a clear indication of their bias towards the government's 'in-Campaign'. For if the Swiss had decided to stay in the EU, it would have been broadcast from the rooftops from morning til night and debated for a few days after). I wonder why the BBC was so economic with this EI news? Anyone any answers? )

3. 'Switzerland–European Union relations' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_Union_relations

 

4. 'The other side of the Alps: living and investing in Switzerland - The politically-savvy Swiss are so happy they stayed out of EU' - http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/the-other-side-of-the-alps-living-and-investing-in-switzerland/

5. 'Switzerland votes 'No' to EU membership, supports Brexit - See more at: http://www.sigmalive.com/en/news/international/142385/switzerland-votes-no-to-eu-membership-supports-brexit#sthash.QrGWumHH.dpuf' - http://www.sigmalive.com/en/news/international/142385/switzerland-votes-no-to-eu-membership-supports-brexit

 

HM Government & the EU Most Probably Covering-Up and Muzzling the Mainstream UK and EU News Media for their 'own' Political Reasons

The few articles above are the 'only' ones from mainstream media that appeared in UK and EU media and because Switzerland's 'out' vote is important to inform people, this can be seen as a 'cover-up' by mainstream media outlets to not inform the British people. Therefore the people of United Kingdom are not being told even highly material factors and where they should clearly understand this before they take the word of the government who are working on a strategy of fear that is not really there and a media cover up when it suits them. Indeed it clearly shows also that the BBC is being controlled by 10 Downing Street, for did you know that Switzerland had decided not to join the EU? Ask yourself that question and where the only answer is that you have to come to the conclusion that there is definitely a cover-up strategy against the people being orchestrated by the UK government.