In February 2014 the Swiss held a binding referendum on whether they should continue to allow free movement of people with the European Union. The Swiss are outside the EU, but their trade agreements with the EU had conceded free movement of people.

They voted to end it, and because it is a binding referendum, the Swiss govt must implement it by Feb 2017 at the latest. But the EU has been stalling, refusing to even sit down for talks to renegotiate the trade deals. Instead the EU has told them to have another referendum on the subject.

On Thursday June 23rd, the UK voted to leave the EU, and free movement of people was one of the drivers of the vote. And the EU responded on Tuesday with the same message as they gave the Swiss - no trade deal without free movement of people. Why are the EU so determined to allow people to move? Simple - they have very high unemployment (20% unemployment in Spain for example), and rather than fixing their economies, they would rather just dump those people on the few countries that are doing well (like Switzerland and the UK).

Switzerland is a small country with a population of 8.08 million. But the UK is huge with a 65 million population. That means citizens of the UK can use trade to force the EU into an agreement on our terms.

Article 50 which starts the firing gun to negotiate the UK's exit won't get triggered till September when a new Prime Minister is in place. That leave two months for British citizens to use their buying power to demonstrate to the EU how the lack of a trade deal will affect Europeans.

For example I went through the groceries I bought on the weekend from Sainsburys. Looking at the card on the iced ring doughnuts, it said "previously frozen, prepared in Germany". I had no idea, I'd just assumed they were British. The frozen chicken kievs had been prepared in the Netherlands. The frozen potato wedges were also prepared in the Netherlands and the frozen Chicken Tikka massala said "Produced in the Republic of Ireland using chicken from Thailand, the Netherlands and Germany". The Kenco instant coffee was British, but be aware that if you buy Carte Noire, you are purchasing coffee prepared in Ireland, and if you buy Douwe Egberts you are buying coffee prepared in the Netherlands. All the cheese, fresh meat and fresh vegetables were British though.

It was an interesting exercise - I was contributing to the trade deficit just by being thoughtless in my weekly shop. It should be easy for us all to substitute all that foreign stuff with food prepared in Britain. And in doing so, you will have tilted the scales just a little towards Britain, and away from the European Union when it comes to negotiations in September.