'Grillage People' no more: European Parliament group of Farage and Grillo collapses

Nigel Farage and Beppe Grillo (the 'Grillage People', as @Berlaymonster brilliantly renamed the duo) have just lost their group in the European Parliament.

Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule left #EFDD group today. #EFDD no longer has members from at least 7 countries, so declared dissolved today. #EP
— Jaume Duch (@jduch) October 16, 2014

The Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group has collapsed following the departure of Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule, of the Latvian Farmers' Union. We don't know yet what pushed Grigule to leave. Sources from the EFDD group are already circulating their version of what happened:

EFDD sources say Latvian MEP was 'bribed' by @MartinSchulz and @EPPGroup to leave @Nigel_Farage group
— Bruno Waterfield (@BrunoBrussels) October 16, 2014

However, what we know is that Grigule's decision means UKIP, the Five-Star Movement and the other parties that had joined the group will lose a few millions of EU funding. According to our estimates, the EFDD group could have claimed around €3.8 million a year (see here for more details).

As we noted in our previous blog posts, it was not obvious that Farage's group would see through the whole five-year term in the European Parliament - not least because of the differences between UKIP and the Five-Star Movement, the two biggest factions in the group. Still, today's announcement has come a bit out of the blue.

In any case, given UKIP's growing momentum in domestic politics (victorious in the Clacton by-election and riding high in the latest opinion polls), we doubt Farage will be crying into his pint over losing his group in the European Parliament.

It's hard to predict what will happen next. For the moment, MEPs from the dissolved EFDD group will sit as non-attached members - the same status as Marine Le Pen's Front National, Lega Nord and Geert Wilders's Freedom Party, who failed to form their own group during the summer.

Will they all start discussing a possible cooperation? Will any of the (former) EFDD parties look to join forces with Le Pen, allowing her to form a new group? Or will Farage manage to quickly find a substitute for Grigule and re-establish the EFDD group? Time will tell.

Headlines are all for AfD and UKIP, but the biggest shocker for traditional parties may come from Spain...

The surge of anti-EU, anti-euro and protest parties across Europe continues. Germany's anti-euro Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is making headlines after winning 9.7% of votes in yesterday's regional elections in Saxony and securing its first ever seats in one of the country's regional parliaments.

In the UK, a Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday found that, following the defection of Douglas Carswell from the Conservatives to UKIP last week, UKIP is set to win the ensuing Clacton by-election with 64% of the vote - which would grant Nigel Farage's party its first elected MP.

However, the biggest shocker for mainstream parties seems to be coming from Spain. According to a new Sigma Dos poll for El Mundo, the anti-establishment (but not anti-EU) party Podemos would finish third in a general election with 21.2% of votes - only 1.1% less than the opposition Socialist Party. Being neck-and-neck with one of Spain's two traditional parties is an absolutely extraordinary result for Podemos, given that it was founded in March. The poll puts Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's centre-right Partido Popular in the lead on 30.1% - a 14.5% fall from the 44.6% the party scored at the November 2011 general election (click on the picture to enlarge).

 
If you didn't read it at the time, here is a portrait of Podemos and its leader, Pablo Iglesias, that we published in the aftermath of the European Parliament elections in May - when Podemos came from nowhere to win five seats in Strasbourg. We noted:

Call it left-wing, anti-establishment, anti-austerity (but clearly not anti-EU), the rise of Podemos is significant because - similar to what the Five-Star Movement has done in Italy - it can give Spaniards a channel through which they can voice their dissatisfaction with the political establishment (and the current eurozone economic policies), something which has been lacking at the peak of the eurozone crisis.

Indeed, looking at the latest polls, Podemos seems to be following exactly the same trajectory as Beppe Grillo's Five-Star Movement in terms of rocketing (potential) electoral support. And exactly as in Italy, the rise of a strong anti-establishment party may well force the centre-right Partido Popular and the Socialists to consider an unusual (and uncomfortable) 'grand coalition' if none of the two big traditional parties wins a majority in the next general election - due in November 2015.

While the speed of the rise of Podemos is certainly surprising, there has undoubtedly been a huge gap in the market for a protest party in Spain over the past few years - as we noted on this blog at the end of May. Despite sky-high unemployment, a struggling economy, a few political scandals and regional discontent, no party or movement had so far managed to shake the solid support for the two mainstream parties. But since Podemos entered stage, things seems to have changed. With a Catalan independence referendum potentially coming up in November and thoughts turning towards next year's general election, these are certainly interesting times in Spanish politics.

Farage wraps up his European Parliament group faster than Le Pen...thanks to a Front National defector

Nigel Farage has managed to form a new Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group in the European Parliament. The group comprises 48 MEPs from seven EU member states. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats and the Latvian Farmers' Union both joined forces with UKIP. But the story of the day is that the seventh nationality Farage needed to wrap up his group has been provided by...a French MEP who defected from Marine Le Pen's Front National.

Joëlle Bergeron (see picture) was elected to the European Parliament with Front National last month. However, according to her, she came under pressure to give up her seat to another member of the party deemed as more 'orthodox' and closer to Le Pen. A couple of days before the European Parliament elections, Madame Bergeron had raised a few eyebrows in Front National's leadership by speaking out in favour of giving immigrants the right to vote in local elections in France. She eventually decided not to step down as an MEP, but she quit Front National and joined UKIP's group.   

How these parties will coexist remains uncertain. For example, UKIP wants to quit the EU, and Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star Movement is a rather unpredictable quantity that doesn’t want to leave the EU and supports a financial transaction tax. Indeed, the fact that parties will be allowed to vote independently on each specific issue could help make the alliance more sustainable.  

As we noted in a recent briefing, European Parliament rules mean the EFD group - as all the others - will be entitled to millions of subsidies every year. According to our estimates, based on 2012 figures, Farage's new alliance could claim in total around €5.6 million a year - €3.8 million for the group in the European Parliament, and €1.8 million for the affiliated pan-European political party and foundation. UKIP is not a member of the latter two, so it will only be entitled to a portion of the money specifically devoted to the European Parliament group.

So Nigel was faster than Marine, but Le Pen still has a good chance of forming her own group. She was in Brussels yesterday for a meeting with her new allies, and Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke was sitting at the table (see picture) - most likely a sign that Poland's Congress of the New Right (KNP) is on board. This means Le Pen only needs one more national delegation to finish the job. Difficult, given that the deadline to register new groups expires next Tuesday, but definitely not impossible.  

Farage suffers another defection: can he still put together a group in the European Parliament?

With the deadline for the registration of European Parliament political groups set to expire early next week (the European Parliament's equivalent of a transfer window), even the moves of individual MEPs can be decisive.

Nigel Farage suffered an unexpected blow yesterday, as Dutch MEP Bastiaan 'Bas' Belder (see picture) announced that he would leave UKIP's Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group and join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) - the Tories' group.

This complicates things for Farage, who now needs MEPs from at least three more member states (other than UK, Italy, Czech Republic and Lithuania) to gain the seven countries needed to keep his EFD group alive.

Time is running out, but there are still a few options out there, including:

• The Sweden Democrats (who have also applied to join the ECR group); 

• German satirical party Die Partei; 

• Poland's Congress of the New Right (who are also in talks with Marine Le Pen);

• Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki of the Bulgarian National Movement (VMRO).

Meanwhile, there has been no news from the Le Pen-Wilders front this week. They also need two more countries to wrap up their group. Given that Farage and Le Pen have both ruled out joining forces with Golden Dawn, Jobbik and the German neo-nazi NPD, the room for manoeuvre is now narrower, and the two may well end up contending for the same MEPs. The next few days are going to be interesting.

Grillo joins Farage, but UKIP's group in the European Parliament is not a done deal yet

Now it's official: Italy's anti-establishment Five-Star Movement will try to form an alliance with UKIP in the new European Parliament. Beppe Grillo launched an online survey of Five-Star members and activists on his blog yesterday, and 78% of votes went for Nigel Farage's EFD group.

The survey has drawn criticism from the Italian press, but also from some Five-Star MPs, for a number of reasons:

• Only 29,584 votes were cast, a microscopic amount when compared to the almost 5.8 million votes the Five-Star Movement won in the European Parliament elections;

• The survey only offered three options: EFD (UKIP's group), ECR (the UK Conservatives' group) or non-attached. Other groups that could have been more natural allies of the Five-Star Movement, notably the Greens and the European Left of SYRIZA and Podemos, were not included;

• The three options were presented on Grillo's blog in a way that appeared to privilege Farage's group. The description of the ECR was shorter and less enthusiastic in tone. As regards the non-attached group, the blog warned that being part of it would mean "limited or no influence on the legislative activities of the European Parliament", and would therefore prevent the Five-Star Movement from pushing its political agenda in Europe. A fair point, although it can also be quite difficult to impose your views if you are sitting in a group where no-one agrees with you on certain issues.

Still, the verdict of la rete (the internet) is sacred for Grillo and the alliance with UKIP will go ahead. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. Although they both emphasise the importance of referenda and direct democracy, the Five-Star Movement and UKIP are not exactly soulmates. Energy policy, EU farm subsidies, financial regulation, the financial transaction tax, GMOs and the EU-US free-trade deal (TTIP) are all issues on which the two parties do not see eye to eye.   

Indeed, the deal between Grillo and Farage is that their parties will sit in the same group, but will vote independently. This could help make the alliance sustainable in the longer term.

So where does this leave Farage with the formation of his group in the European Parliament? The bad news for UKIP is that they still need two national factions to wrap up the group. At the moment, parties from five EU countries are on board: UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.

On the other hand, though, Farage is now ahead of Marine Le Pen when it comes to the number of MEPs in the respective groups. Farage has 45 MEPs on his side, Le Pen only 38 (42 if you count the Polish KNP party, whose participation has not yet been confirmed).

Will Le Pen and Farage both succeed in putting together a group? And whose will be the largest one? We will likely get the answer over the next couple of weeks.  

Anti-euro Alternative für Deutschland now likely to join Tories' European Parliament group - what will it mean for Anglo-German relations?

Relations between Berlin and London are potentially about to become a lot more complicated.

The Tories raised some eyebrows last week when they allowed the Finns Party and Danish People’s Party – two parties with controversial histories, but who, according to Tory MEPs, have cleaned up their act – to join their European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) group in the European Parliament.

Even more eyebrows could be raised soon as it now looks highly possible that Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) will also join the ECR.

A vote amongst ECR MEPs is imminent. Number 10 isn't keen at all on the idea, but doesn't actually have a veto over who joins. That’s entirely down to a vote amongst the actual MEPs in the group, with a simple majority needed to approve new applicants.

Number 10 will probably try to make Tory MEPs vote against AfD, but the Tories account for only 19 of 55 ECR MEPs. Most non-UK MEPs will likely vote in favour of allowing AfD to join. This means Number 10 is effectively powerless, short of removing the whip from Tory MEPs or withdrawing from the ECR altogether. Cameron could try to hit the phones to the national leaders of the other parties to try to get them to convince their MEPs to vote against AfD. If successful, he could maybe still block AfD joining.

If AfD joins, it will be explosive. The party would bring seven MEPs to the ECR group, allowing it to potentially overtake the liberals, ALDE, as the third-largest group in the European Parliament (unless ALDE also gets some new recruits). An enlarged ECR would attract additional cash and staff, as well as more important committee posts. Also, the group may well become a more influential voice by virtue of being bigger, and therefore much harder to ignore. It can serve to put significant pressure on the European People's Party (EPP) in particular. You can’t blame Tory MEPs for seeking to maximise their influence.

Also, the ECR strategy appears to involve a concerted effort to strip UKIP's EFD group of its member parties, leading to the its collapse, depriving them of cash and demolishing their platform. Denying them the DPP, the Finns and AfD as members (assuming AfD would even want to join Farage) is a key part of the strategy – which seems to be working so far.

However, with AfD, as with the DPP and the Finns, there’s a big trade-off here: numbers versus image. With the Nordic parties, it was the risk of turning off allies on the liberal right, who are vital to achieving EU reform.

With AfD, it’s all about Angela Merkel. She doesn't deal with AfD. In fact, she barely acknowledges its existence. She once said,

"We consider a collaboration [with AfD] to be out of the question."

Merkel wasn’t happy when Cameron left the EPP-ED group to form the ECR in 2009. Now, joining forces with her arch-enemy will be like chucking a tank of fuel onto the fire. It will also surprise Berlin, since Number 10 has previously ruled out this possibility. In fact, only in February he said:

"In terms of the parties that are going to join that, we have a sister party in Germany, the CDU/CSU. We’re not looking for a new sister party. So I don’t anticipate that situation arising at all."

With AfD, the Independent Greeks (interesting to see whether the two of them will get along) and 'Germany-wary' Law & Justice, the new-look ECR could perceived by some in Berlin as outright anti-Merkel. It's hard to see how this will help Cameron's 'stop Juncker' campaign.

But is it a deal-breaker for a wider Anglo-German bargain on EU reform? Well, to some to some extent the European Parliament follows its own logic. And by having Tory MEPs vote against AfD joining, Cameron will seek to convey a “I did what I could” approach. Indeed, if the plan is for the ECR to become a vehicle for pushing a reformist agenda, there was always going to be a time when the group was no longer going to be “owned” by David Cameron.

Here's a second big potential risk though: yes, these parties share a basic scepticism of current EU. However, parties like the Danish People's Party, Finns Party, Law & Justice are, at best, lukewarm on issues like free trade, reflecting their social democratic core for the first two, and the small 'c' conservative base of the last one. Even AfD has come out against the EU-US trade deal - TTIP - as currently proposed. Remember, TTIP is one of the key items in Cameron's reform package. So, much like the AfD itself, there will be a massive struggle within the ECR over whether it wants to be a solid force for EU reform and free trade or a catch-all sceptical block with a penchant for populism, protectionism and illiberal economics.

You can say that Cameron has no control over his party, or you can say this is an example of a type of devolved democracy (if you’re a federalist, ‘European’ democracy over national politics: this is the system you want) but only time will tell whether this trade-off will be worth it for the wider goal of sweeping reform in Europe.

Merkel and Cameron won't run out of conversation topics any time soon...

The Farage Paradox: UKIP on the rise but so is public support for EU membership

Poll watchers in the last few years would have seen many polls showing a majority of Brits would vote 'out' in a referendum of the UK's membership of the EU. In the last few months this trend has been slowly reversing, and a new Ipsos-MORI poll out today shows that if a referendum were held right now, 54% would vote to stay in - the highest support for the EU for a few years - and 37% would vote to leave.

Why is this the case? The most obvious factor is the improving economic situation in both the UK and (most of) the eurozone. Another factor could be that as the EU debate has become more prominent, it has forced people to consider the issue and come down on one side or the other - it is notable that only 10% say they don't know how they would vote.

Likewise, the concerted focus on EU reform primarily by the Conservatives but also to a lesser extent by Labour and the Lib Dems may have reassured voters that the EU may be moving in the right direction. This has also involved much sharper and clearer communication by David Cameron of what kind of EU reforms he will prioritise, as well as high profile interventions by EU politicians calling on the UK to stay in and emphasising the UK's importance to the EU.

The irony is that the upswing in support is happening at exactly the same time that UKIP is riding high in the national polls and could well come first in next week's European elections, and UKIP leader Nigel Farage was widely seen as having beaten Nick Clegg in the EU debates. These figures lend credence to the theory put out by some including British Future's Sunder Katwala that while Farage is effective at maximising the UKIP vote, his message and rhetoric, including the overwhelmingly negative focus on immigration, is actually a turn-off for potential supporters of a UK exit (Douglas Carswell has also made this point).

The Farage allowances episode is primarily a sign of a fundamentally broken allowances system

The Times today uses the news that Nigel Farage is to be investigated by the EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF, following a complaint from an ex-Ukip official that £60,000 of EU allowances paid into his personal bank account have gone “missing”, to attack the “fraudulent prospectus” that he is “the politician who is not a politician”.

The chief allegation is that:

"The Ukip leader has received £15,500 a year from the EU since at least 2009 to pay for the upkeep of his constituency office, a small converted grain store near Bognor Regis, according to transparency reports filed on the party’s website.  

However, the grain store was given rent-free to Mr Farage by Ukip supporters 15 years ago. Utilities and other non-rental costs amount to no more than £3,000 a year, according to the former office manager, leaving about £12,000 a year unexplained."

The paper also notes that Mr Farage “also revealed that he used a proportion of his [General Expenditure Allowance] to pay more than £1,000 a month towards a controversial second EU pension scheme of which he was a member between 1999 and 2009.”

We looked at this additional pension scheme back in 2009, when it closed to new members, and it was controversial for two reasons. Firstly, it was two-thirds funded by taxpayers and, second, the system relied on MEPs being honest enough to fund the shortfall in their allowances out of their own salary. Credit to Farage for leaving the scheme - but being part of it in the first place doesn't reflect well on him (though he's one of many, many MEPs from all parties who were or still are).

Whatever the rights or wrongs of Farage's actions, this illustrates that the EP's allowances and expenses system is still miles away from what taxpayers should accept. The General Expenditure Allowance is notoriously vulnerable to abuse because it is generous, has a wide list of potential uses and does not require MEPs to produce receipts. The Times' leader itself admits that "It is probable, even if these allegations prove to be true, that Mr Farage has done nothing illegal".

Predictably Farage's response casts him as the victim of a "politically motivated attack from what is the establishment newspaper." The general expenditure allowance, he said, "is given to every MEP and we can spend it how we want to," adding:

"We have used the money to promote the cause of Britain leaving the European Union and we have done that unashamedly"

It is right that Nigel Farage is subject to proper scrutiny and that investigations are carried out if he has a case to answer, but there's still no proof he has done anything illegal. And whether singling out Farage will actually help or hurt his cause remains to be seen. However, what's clear is that the EP's allowance system must urgently be reformed.

The EP allowances system is something that we'll most definitely return to.

Clegg can’t just take on Farage – He also needs to spell out his own vision for EU reform

Ahead of the first EU debate between Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Open Europe's Pawel Swidlicki has written this piece for Lib Dem Voice:

Like all political obsessives up and down the country I’ve stocked up on popcorn ahead of Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage’s upcoming duels over Europe in anticipation of some captivating political theatre. However, from my more sober perspective as a political analyst, such a binary, ‘all-or-nothing’ debate over Europe is fundamentally flawed as it does not speak to where the majority of the British public are at. Polls have consistently shown that when respondents are offered options beyond staying in on the current terms or leaving altogether, the option of staying in a reformed/slimmed down EU proves the most popular across the political spectrum.

People hold different views about how they would like to see the European Union develop. Which of these statements comes closest to your view? (click to enlarge)

Source: YouGov poll for Open Europe, February 2014

As the polling demonstrates, the public is split over the question of the UK’s future in Europe, although staying in a less integrated Europe is by far the single most popular option across the political spectrum, including among Lib Dem voters (more so than among Labour voters!) and even among a substantial chunk of UKIP voters. The concern is that the debates will focus on whether the UK ought to leave or stay in at any cost, thereby ignoring the wider debate about how best to achieve EU reform.

David Cameron’s EU policy may suffer from a number of shortcomings but to his credit, he is at least trying to achieve the reforms that a majority of the public want. Nick Clegg has also acknowledged that the EU needs reform on a number of occasions and he recently set out a “bold” three-pronged agenda based on further trade liberalisation within the single market as well as between the EU and the rest of the world, slimmed down EU institutions and less regulation, and greater democratic accountability via an increased role for national parliaments. This is welcome, even if it falls short of the more ambitious and comprehensive vision for EU reform – with powers flowing back to member states – that he set out back when he was an MEP.

However, at the same event, he undermined his own message by claiming that the most that Cameron’s reform strategy could achieve – which includes all the objectives set out by Clegg himself – as “a few crumbs from the top European table… a little tweak here and there”. This is hugely unhelpful as it plays into the narrative that the UK has virtually no influence over the direction and development of the EU and must take what it is given.

Moreover, there are large gaps in Clegg’s argument when it comes to the future of UK-EU relations. How would the Lib Dems react if the UK were to lose an EU legal case over the safeguards it applies to prevent potential abuse of the UK welfare system by EU migrants? The party supports the so-called ‘right to reside test’ so would they accept its axing at the behest of the European Commission and Court of Justice? Likewise, the party supports safeguards to prevent the rules of the EU’s single market from being set by the Eurozone bloc to the detriment of non-euro member states. Would Lib Dems still insist on staying in if in the longer term the EU became an extension of the Eurozone?

This all matters because in the event of the Coalition being extended post-2015, the two parties will have to hammer out a common position on EU reform/renegotiation prior to a 2017 referendum which Cameron has made clear is an absolute red line for him. Hopefully, Clegg will use the debates to flesh out his ideas for EU reform in greater detail instead of repeating discredited claims about 3 million jobs being lost in the event of an exit. Ultimately, with the public more or less split down the middle on the in/out question, reform is not only not only worth pursuing as an end in itself, but also as a means of securing an ‘in’ vote when the referendum eventually comes.

Irony alert: Farage could be the biggest loser if Le Pen and Wilders manage to form a new anti-EU group in the European Parliament

Belonging to a group in the European Parliament matters. Groups receive money on top of individual MEPs' allowances and are given additional group staff. It also boosts chances of representation on committees (where EU laws are discussed and amended before they are put to a vote in the plenary).

Therefore, the prospect of Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's Front National (FN) and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), forming a new anti-immigration, anti-EU group in the next European Parliament is causing some distress around Europe. When this was last attempted - with the so-called Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS) group - it quickly fell apart. The Greater Romania Party (PRM) didn't quite approve of Alessandra Mussolini - the granddaughter of you-know-who - labelling Romanians "habitual law-breakers" and thus withdrew from the group. Rather telling.

So will Wilders and Le Pen succeed to unite parties that, per definition, don't always like each other? According to EU rules, 25 MEPs from at least a quarter (seven) EU member states are needed to form a group.

By our count, at least four more parties from as many EU countries look willing to join forces with FN and PVV: Italy's Lega Nord (who currently sits in the same group as UKIP), Belgium's Vlaams Belang, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Sweden Democrats (whose leader today said they are considering joining). This leaves FN and PVV only one party and country short.

This could be filled by, for example, the Slovak National Party (SNS) - which is pretty hardcore, and currently sits with UKIP. Bulgaria's Ataka would probably also be quite keen to join, though Le Pen recently called the party "the real extreme right" (not meaning it favourably). Greater Romania may struggle to reach the 5% national threshold needed to win seats in the European Parliament, but could be another possibility.

The Danish People's party has said it won't join the group, while Greece's Golden Dawn and Hungary's Jobbik seem to be off-limits for everyone.

So this might come down to the wires. An interesting twist, though: if Le Pen/Wilders succeed, this could mean problems for Farage. UKIP currently sits in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group - which includes 31 MEPs from twelve different countries, but:

• Farage could lose several MEPs from Italy, with Lega Nord joining FN and PVV, and the other Italian, Magdi Cristiano Allam, standing for re-election with a different party (Fratelli d'Italia);
• The Slovak National Party might join the Le Pen/Wilders group in the end;
• The (True) Finns are talking to the European Conservatives and Reformist (ECR) group, where the UK Conservative Party sits;
• The two Greek MEPs in UKIP's group are from LAOS - a party which is currently polling below the national threshold of 3%. This means their re-election is not certain;
• In addition, seven out of twelve EU countries in UKIP's group are currently represented by only one MEP.

So Farage could need both new parties, additional MEPs and more countries to be able to set a group after May's European elections. And if not managing a group of his own, where will he go? Will he reconsider his decision not to join forces with Marine Le Pen, something he ruled out in the past  when he said UKIP and FN are from "completely different political traditions and background"?

What is clear is that the formation of political groupings in the European Parliament will be a messy affair - and then we haven't even begun to discuss the ECR...

EU immigration: Why Ukip should pay close attention to what happens next in Switzerland

Our Director Mats Persson writes on his Telegraph blog:

In a referendum yesterday, the Swiss voted by a narrow margin in favour of restricting immigration from the EU. Switzerland is not an EU member but via around 100 agreements, Switzerland is partly integrated into the EU, including in the contentious area of free movement of workers.

Ukip’s Nigel Farage has been quick to stick the boot in, calling the vote "wonderful news for national sovereignty and freedom lovers throughout Europe." Equally predictable, Vivanne Reding – Vice President of the EU Commission – said that while "we respect the democratic vote of the Swiss people… The single market is not a Swiss cheese. You cannot have a single market with holes in it."

Which is a silly statement. One of the basic flaws with the Swiss trading relationship with the EU is precisely that it suffers from holes, including patchy market access in areas such as services, making it a sub-optimal model for the UK to follow. But Reding’s comments still highlight what an important test case this will be of the feasibility of the pick and mix relationship with the EU from outside, which the UK might have to adopt should it leave the EU.

Here it gets tricky. The Swiss-EU agreement on free movement was part of a bundle of agreements known as Bilaterals I, which also covered six other areas including market access for various Swiss exporters and firms, from trade in agricultural products to civil aviation. Crucially, it contains a "guillotine clause: which says that that the contents – including the market access – can only take effect together: if one of the agreements is terminated, the others would also cease to have effect. This sets Bern up for very difficult talks with Brussels. If the EU wants to play hardball, it could scrap the entire agreement.

There are a huge number of issues captured in the Swiss vote: support for immigration in Europe, the risk for an open economy in erecting new barriers to the world (think labour costs), how the EU responds to referendum results and much more. However, for the UK the implications are clear. If this escalates into other areas of Swiss-EU trade, including restricted market access, many in the UK will argue that a “pick and mix” deal with the EU will be hard to pull off. If, on the other hand, Switzerland was able to renegotiate its relationship to impose some form of restrictions on EU migration, however minor, those who favour UK exit would no doubt see it as a politically palatable precedent.

The Swiss referendum question doesn't specify what shape the immigration quotas would take, but only instructs the Swiss Parliament to draft legislation addressing the issue within the next three years. Much can still happen. However, no matter what, the EU will most certainly negotiate any revised deal with one eye firmly fixed on London, worrying about giving the Brits ideas. And for anyone with even the slightest interest in Britain’s future place in Europe, this is a key one to watch.