Hardline Tory Brexiters must be called out on their inaccurate claims about the Swiss border. Dominic Raab was once again on the BBC Today programme this week (listen from 1:35) telling Nick Robinson that Switzerland offered a model for a frontier in Northern Ireland that “wouldn’t require infrastructure at the border”. The former Brexit secretary argued that “practice around the world including on the Swiss border shows it can be done”.
This is sheer nonsense, but once again went unchecked without any correction.
The hard-Brexit lobby have been claiming for some time that Swiss border crossing arrangements are in some way a model for Ireland. Daniel Hannan made the same claim last year on Newsnight as have Owen Paterson and other Tory anti-Europeans in different BBC interviews.
On LBC this week Eddie Mair allowed a caller to assert “there are no borders in Switzerland”, again without telling the man he was talking rubbish.
After Raab’s absurd but unchecked claim there was an explosion on Twitter, with people who lived in Switzerland or crossed the frontier from France or Germany to work there on a daily basis sending in photos of major border posts as big as those between the United States and Canada.
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Click here to find out moreThe photos on Twitter show queues of lorries and cars. To be sure, most cars are just waved through. 320,000 EU citizens living in France, Germany or Italy close to Switzerland cross the frontiers every day to work. They hang a little pass on their rearview mirror and are waved through.
There are inspection lanes for lorries, and also for the cars the Swiss border and customs officials want to check. There are often armed police and sometimes on the Swiss-French border there might be French soldiers with rifles who have been stationed there since the wave of terrorist attacks in recent years.
It is illegal to bring into Switzerland more than a kilo of meat or four chickens bought in a supermarket in a neighbouring EU country. Fines are regularly dished out for anyone who brings in more than a bottle or two of wine into Switzerland from lower-priced France.
Anyone who lives or works in Switzerland knows about this, as the pictures and comments posted on Twitter after Robinson’s failure to correct Raab’s untrue statement revealed.
Perhaps it is understandable that presenters like Robinson and Mair do not challenge Brexiters on this. They are, after all, not trade experts. And there is sometimes such a torrent of misinformation coming from the likes of Raab that an interviewer cannot interrupt at every false point – they are trying to produce programming that is at least somewhat coherent and enjoyable.
But untruths about the Swiss border have been pumped out by Brexiters for months now. Journalists and their editors have a responsibility to clamp down on this line. Not to do so helps the Brexiters push their line that a chaotic “no deal” would somehow be fine. It won’t. It will be chaotic and broadcasters’ audiences won’t thank them for allowing it to unfold.
