When David Cameron pledged to offer the people of Britain an “in-or-out” referendum on our membership of the European Union(EU), he summed up the outcome he didn’t want as follows: “If your vision of Britain is that we should just withdraw and become a sort of greater Switzerland, I think that would be a complete denial of our national interests.” Yet the Eurosceptics see Switzerland as exactly the model to follow. Outside the EU it has thrived, with the lowest unemployment rate on the continent -- and in July it signed a trailblazing free-trade deal with China.

British Prime Minister David Cameron recently promised to hold a referendum by 2017 giving British people the choice of staying in or leaving the European Union if his party wins the next election. Pic/AFP