Watching Swiss Nationalists Celebrate the Closing of Their Borders

Luzi Stamm giving his speech

After getting Swiss voters to back a ban on the building of minarets, as well as doing fantastic work on a strict deportation initiative, the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SPP) just sealed another federal campaign.

This time, they wanted to replace the existing immigration agreement – a bilateral treaty that allows for the free movement of persons within the European Union – with a system of quotas, meaning the government have to set an upper limit for foreigners living in the country. On Sunday, the "Initiative Against Mass Immigration", as it's called, was passed in a public referendum with 50.3 percent of the popular vote.

The quota system has been criticised for a number of reasons, but the main two complaints revolve around people losing money. Commentators argue that the result could damage relations between Switzerland and the EU, its biggest trading partner, and that it might stop companies from hiring the kind of top foreign talent that has given them a competitive edge in the past. At least now we can see if they were right.

To convince voters to turn Switzerland into a fenced-off mountain sanctuary for white people, the campaign used shock tactics like misleading statistics, posters of shady figures wearing black burqas and images of immigrants stylised as a menacing horde of boots. Thanks to all that fear-mongering, I had a depressing premonition about the results of the referendum and wanted to meet the people responsible for it, so I signed up to the official SPP ballot-brunch.

I was inundated with friendly goodwill as soon as I arrived. For starters, member of the National Council and notable toupee aficionado Luzi Stamm said he loved foreigners – "and I don't want to hear one word against any immigrants or foreigners who are already here", he continued. He also loved the EU: "The EU is no dictatorship," he explained, helpfully. "These are our friends. And because we are friends, we sit at a table with the EU and communicate our needs."

The friendliness – which reminded me of those maniacally enthusiastic shop assistants whose faces seem to be permanently stuck in a kind of rigor mortis smile – didn't stop there. "You say you'd want to emigrate if the initiative were accepted?" asked Martin Schlup, an MP from Bern, over coffee. "Good! Finally someone with a clear stance!"

SPP supporter and entrepreneur Peter Gaus, however, was pure negative vibes. In fact, I'm not even sure why he was there – he seemed to hate everyone and everything to do with the Swiss People's Party. "This anti-abortion initiative is hypocritical – I think it's terrible," he said, speaking about the SPP campaign to remove abortions from universal medical insurance coverage. "Blocher [Vice President of the SPP] does seem a bit like a dictator, in hindsight. He just doesn't realise that his time is over."

This DJ turned up and got the brunch party going

Next, Markus Büchi – a guy who seemed to be a pretty big deal to most people in the room – stepped up to the microphone. I almost immediately saw why everyone liked him: because he appears to be far more interested in protecting the party and its members than the personal welfare of anyone else in the country. "It is definitely more sensible to give the SPP money than the tax administration," he said.

Shortly after Büchi's speech, the first intermediate results began rolling in and I started to feel slightly shaky. Region after region was being painted in green (a good thing for the SPP) on screens all around us. The referendum was particularly popular in more rural cantons (administrative districts); for example, in Ticino – the country's southernmost canton – it received a 66 percent Yes vote. The bigger cities (as well as the French-speaking part of Switzerland), on the other hand, mostly rejected the SPP's plans.

As the right-wingers began to feel more confident, their tone became increasingly obnoxious. "Thinking about leaving?" someone shouted at me. "They say, in central Switzerland, that there are twice the number of Macedonians than there are Swiss in the whole country!" blurted Luzi Stamm, excitedly.

A bunch of people were wearing these fetching nationalist ties

Then everything just started getting kind of confusing. Proud mother Nadja Zbinden said she takes her 13-year-old to SPP conventions and told me where her anti-EU stance originated. "I'm against the EU because I once saw a truck full of animals, and half were already dead," she recalled. "The driver said it's cheaper to transport the animals alive. It was then that I knew the EU was evil."

Naveen Hostetter, an SPP supporter of Indian descent, wore a tie with black sheep on it, a reminder of an older, openly racist SPP campaign. When I asked him if he was a black or a white sheep, he said: "Can't you see what I look like?" Then he said: "Do you only see black and white? Look, there's red on the tie as well."

Florian Müller

I remembered Florian Müller from my time with the Socialist Youth, where he was also a member. "I always shared your opinions, except when it came to the army," he said. "And now I've changed my opinion – from the Socialist Youth to the Young SPP."

Apparently, according to Florian, having a socialist past doesn't matter too much when you're joining a right-wing party in Switzerland. It also supposedly doesn't matter that the Swiss will soon be unable to travel freely or work in most of Europe: "The only disadvantages are the exchange semesters at university," the bright light of the Young SPP told me. "But nowadays it's possible to study outside of the EU."

The Swiss government now has the thankless job of having to renegotiate with the European Union, aware that relations could easily sour. Meanwhile, demonstrations against the bill took place all over the country on Sunday, with people spontaneously taking to the streets in Zurich, Basel, Berne, Geneva, Lucerne and Kreuzlingen.

What the outcome of both the bill and those protests might be remains to be seen.