Brexit and the Changing Discourse of the Conservatives

Abstract

The road to Brexit has been strewn with falsehoods, hype and fantasies. Boris Johnson, as an opportunistic campaigner for leaving the European Union and now Prime Minister, has excelled in this genre of political communication, and played a key role in securing electoral support for Brexit. He has not been alone, as this review of the Conservative discourse shows. However, a longer term examination of the European Union as viewed by British Conservatives, including by Margaret Thatcher who promoted the Single Market strongly, suggests that Britain’s historically different approach to the EU – favouring trade but not economic and political integration – perhaps made something like today’s Brexit inevitable.