Will UK become like Switzerland?

I would be delighted if we became like Switzerland, one of the wealthiest, happiest and healthiest countries on Earth.

You wouldn't mind the open border?

Will the UK become like Switzerland, where they aren't a member of the EU but still have a lot of the benefits such as free movement of people?

I think this point will expose a contradiction within the Eurosceptic movement.

Switzerland has been held up for a long time as a model of a European democracy that a lot of Eurosceptics wanted the UK to follow: a country that is essentially open and free market and has a customised relationship with Europe. It has negotiated free trade and access to parts of the single market which means it has to accept EU product rules (without having a say in them) but doesn't have to apply those rules to its domestic market and doesn't have to apply its employment and social rules to its domestic market. Also they have free trade agreements with the EU but aren't part of the customs union (which is basically a single trade policy) so they can negotiate their own trade deals with other countries. And they aren't involved with the Common Agricultural Policy.

So this is largely the model for the "in Europe, trading with Europe, but not ruled by Europe" that was traditionally the call of the Eurosceptic movement, which is why free market liberal Eurosceptics like Daniel Hannan like the Swiss example.

But it comes with three main strings attached:
- they have to accept free movement of people with the EU
- they have to pay in to the EU budget
- they don't have a passport for financial services ie a Swiss bank can't offer services across the EU unless it locates itself within the EU.

Eurosceptics have been campaigning for many years but until the past few years it has been seen as a niche movement within the Conservative party and within some free marketers who didn't like EU employment laws or sovereignty campaigners that were angry that at successive EU treaties, British politicians had handed away larger swathes of powers to be decided by the EU without having the consent of the British people.

More recently there has been a working class Eurosceptic movement largely based around wanting to control immigration and concern about competition with EU migrants for jobs and access to housing/public services. This is a much larger movement in terms of voters and this group has been the group that has ensured there were enough votes to win a referendum.

But whilst traditional Eurosceptics would probably be happy to arrange a deal like Switzerland, the newer working class Eurosceptics probably have free movement as their "red line", similar to how in 2010 a lot of Lib Dem voters voted for them based on free tuition fees. So there will be no forgiveness if Leave politicians negotiate free movement in exchange for the favourable market access and trading relations that they want. I also think the newer working class Eurosceptics would not allow Britain to pay in to the EU budget.

The challenge is, once your red lines become controls on immigration and not contributing to the EU budget it may be very difficult to strike a deal with the EU other than at best a free trade deal on tariffs. This will mean that a lot of the traditional free-market Eurosceptics think we have gone backwards because one thing the EU did was facilitate freer markets.