A VOTE ABOUT MORE THAN IMMIGRATION | WHAT SWITZERLAND UNDERSTANDS ABOUT BELONGING

There are many reasons I love living in Switzerland. The mountains are, of course, among the most obvious. Yet the deeper reasons are often harder to articulate, revealing themselves in moments that have little to do with alpine scenery but in actions that speak to the character of a nation and the values that shape daily life.

This past weekend offered one of those moments.

The Swiss people were asked to vote on a proposal that would have capped the country’s population at ten million people, effectively placing limits on future immigration and potentially jeopardising Switzerland’s free movement agreement with the European Union.

The debate was vigorous. Strong views were expressed on all sides, with questions raised around housing, infrastructure, public services, environmental pressures and cultural identity. These concerns are clearly not uniquely Swiss, as today they are increasingly familiar across much of the developed world, where societies are grappling with the realities of growth, demographic change and global interconnectedness.

Yet when the votes were counted, Switzerland chose a different path. Not because concerns were dismissed, nor because immigration is not a legitimate issue necessitating discussion. Practically, this remarkable Alpine nation once again demonstrated something increasingly missing in many democracies today; the ability to engage with a difficult question, listen to competing perspectives, weigh evidence, debate respectfully and ultimately place trust in the democratic process.

At a moment when public discourse appears dominated by the need for certitude and consequential confrontation, I found something deeply reassuring in living in a country that moved in an opposite direction.

What struck me most, however, was that beneath the discussion of immigration sat a deeper question. One that extends far beyond Switzerland and increasingly sits at the heart of political and social conversations across much of the modern world. Fractures across Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and the United States point to something that extends beyond policy. The question is not simply who enters a country. It is whether people still feel they belong within it.

Immigration has become the proxy for a wider set of concerns; economic security, cultural continuity, housing affordability, public services, social cohesion and confidence in the future. Yet beneath these debates sits something far more fundamental.  People are not only debating who is crossing their borders but grappling with a rapidly changing world and questioning what should endure as societies evolve.

Globalisation connected the world. Technology accelerated its pace. Social media has intensified both comparison and division. Communities that previously felt steady have become more fluid, institutions that previously commanded trust increasingly struggle to do so, and traditional anchors of identity; family, faith, profession, community and nation, no longer provide the same depth of certainty that they once did.

As a result, immigration has become emblematic of a weightier question; how can societies preserve a degree of continuity, identity and belonging while remaining open to change?

This is why the debate has become so emotionally charged. It is therefore not purely about numbers. Instead, it’s more about whether people feel connected to the places they live, represented by the institutions that govern them and confident about the future that they are shaping.

The challenge is that belonging cannot be created through exclusion alone, nor can it be sustained by pretending differences do not exist. Healthy societies are going to have to find ways to remain open while preserving cohesion, welcoming while maintaining identity, and confident enough in who they are that they do not perceive every change as a threat.

That is what makes the Swiss conversation so compelling. At its heart, this was never simply a debate about immigration; it was a debate about how a society protects what it values while remaining true to the principles that helped make it successful in the first place.

Across much of the world the foundations are shifting beneath our feet. Institutions continue to function. Markets still open. Daily airports move millions of people across their borders. Democracies continue to hold elections. However, beneath the surface, trust is diminishing, cohesion is fraying and certainty is dissolving. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that many people no longer feel fully held by the societies in which they live.

For decades, liberal democracy became one of the defining narratives of the modern world and, in many respects, one of modern humanity’s most significant achievements. Its foundations were powerful – individual freedom, democratic choice, economic opportunity, human rights and freedom of belief. The results were equally significant, creating a world that is healthier, wealthier, safer and interconnected than at any previous point in history.

Yet somewhere along the way, something essential appears to have been neglected. Belonging.

The French Revolution famously gave us three ideals – Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Modern democracies have devoted enormous attention to the first two. Yet the third, the idea of shared identity, mutual obligation and collective belonging, has repeatedly received less attention.

Human beings are not autonomous creatures. We seek meaning through connection, identity through community and purpose through the relationships and institutions that surround us. And when societies fail to provide healthy forms of belonging, people do not stop needing it; they simply begin searching for it elsewhere, whether through ideology, outrage, political movements, digital tribes or more extreme forms of identity.

Vacuums of belonging rarely remain empty for long.

This may help explain much of the instability emerging across the modern world. We now regularly describe this as an era of political polarisation. Yet while political discords are growing, I’m not convinced they fully rationalise what we are witnessing. To me, the deeper fracture may be emotional and existential, with many people feeling increasingly unanchored, disconnected and invisible within systems that speak frequently about rights but less often about responsibility, involvement and communal purpose.

Healthy belonging does not require hostility towards outsiders. To love one’s family does not require hatred of another family, just as valuing one’s country, culture, language or heritage does not inherently imply intolerance towards others. This probably is one of the great errors of our age.

The challenge, therefore, is not to abandon belonging. Rather, it is to rediscover it in ways that strengthen rather than divide, build confidence rather than fear, and remind people that they are part of something larger than themselves.

What makes Switzerland remarkable is not that it has solved this challenge, no country has. Instead, the Nation continues to engage with it, consciously. This is a country of four national languages, multiple cultures, strong local identities and deep democratic traditions, where citizens are regularly asked to participate directly in shaping their joined future.

In other parts of the world, challenging questions have become increasingly hard to even debate. People retreat into ideological camps, conversation becomes outrage and complexity is often sacrificed in favour of slogans. Democracy was never intended to eliminate disagreement; it was designed to provide a framework through which differences could be voiced constructively.

The Swiss vote therefore served as a reminder that healthy societies are not those without tensions, but those capable of confronting tensions without fracturing, listening without surrendering, debating without demonising and disagreeing without dividing. At a time when many nations appear increasingly polarised, that may be one of Switzerland’s most valuable contributions to the modern world.

As I reflect on this debate, I cannot help but wonder whether an even larger conversation is already approaching. Whilst societies argue about the movement of people across borders, the next great migration may not involve people at all. It may involve intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is introducing something humanity has never encountered before: a new form of actor entering society. Not human. Not citizen. Not immigrant. Yet increasingly capable of learning, reasoning, creating and influencing the world around it. Coming generations could find themselves debating what enters their institutions, economies, schools, governments and even personal relationships.

Yet the underlying challenge remains remarkably similar. Whether discussing immigration, globalisation or artificial intelligence, the deeper issue is rarely about the newcomer. It is about us. Perhaps that is the lesson Switzerland offered this week. Not a lesson about immigration. Not even a lesson about politics. Rather, a lesson about the importance of remaining in conversation with one another.

The future is certainly going to present humanity with increasingly complex questions around migration, identity, technology, artificial intelligence, climate and sovereignty. The temptation appears to be moving towards backing into a retreat of certainty and surrounding ourselves exclusively with those who concur with our viewpoint. However, free societies were not built upon unanimity. They advanced on the foundations of the ability to engage with complexity, tolerate difference and navigate disagreement without losing sight of the imperative of our shared humanity.

Perhaps that is why belonging matters so deeply. Not because it tells us who to exclude, but because it reminds us of all we share. A confidence in who we are allows us to remain open to others. A strong sense of identity makes change less threatening. And a society that knows itself is far less likely to fear every new idea, every new challenge or every new arrival.

In the end, the question is not whether the world will continue to change. It will. The question is whether we can preserve enough trust, enough connection and enough shared purpose to navigate the coming changes, together.

This week, Switzerland reminded us that difficult questions do not always require simplistic answers, that disagreement need not become division, and that in an increasingly fragmented world, the ability to listen, debate and remain connected to one another may be among the most valuable strengths any society can possess.

For that, Switzerland, thank you.