Switzerland?

Let’s face it – Switzerland is the geopolitical equivalent of a fondue set: charming, archaic, and entirely unnecessary. A quaint curiosity gathering dust on the Alpine mantelpiece of Europe. It shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t.

What is Switzerland, really? A nation? Hardly. It’s a linguistic ménage à trois held together by cheese, cuckoo clocks, and an obsessive-compulsive relationship with punctuality. Half German, a chunk French, a wedge Italian, and a sliver Romansh (which is basically leftover Latin mixed with yodelling) – it’s not a melting pot, it’s a glacial trifle.

Let’s be brutally honest – the Swiss aren’t a people, they’re a marketing department. Neutral in every war, invisible in every crisis, yet somehow omnipresent when it's time to flog overpriced watches or hide dodgy loot. Their main contribution to global affairs is saying “no comment” in four languages.

And the country itself? A jagged pile of mountains draped in neutrality and Toblerone. Its entire raison d’être seems to be: 

• providing a scenic backdrop for Bond films, 
• overengineering things that don’t need overengineering (e.g. penknives with altimeters), and 
• refusing to join the EU out of principle, yet trading with it anyway like a teenager who’s moved out but still brings their laundry home.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are stumbling through the aftermath of empires and referenda, and there’s Switzerland – smugly polishing its direct democracy, where referenda are held because someone’s offended by a cowbell.

It’s time to call it what it is: an Alpine anomaly. A nation stitched together by geography and goat paths, masquerading as a modern state. It would make much more sense partitioned:

The Germans could take Zurich and finally have a city where their trains run too much on time. The French could have Geneva – they already act like they own it, and it's full of diplomats who talk a lot and do bugger all. The Italians get Ticino – mainly because they need something that works.

What remains could be turned into a skiing resort for the rest of us, or better yet – a giant offshore museum for laundering nostalgia. Call it “The Republic of Alpine Whimsy” and let tourists pay in Bitcoin and butter.

Switzerland is the Esperanto of nation-states – noble in theory, faintly ridiculous in practice. It’s survived not because it’s brilliant, but because nobody can be bothered to argue with a country that thinks the army should come with a corkscrew.

Time to cut it up, divvy it out, and finally bring this snow globe of smugness to heel. After all – neutrality is just what you call cowardice when you’re rich enough to get away with it.