Inside out: The UK press, Brexit and strategic populist ventriloquism

David Smith,John Downey,David Deacon

doi:10.1177/0267323120940917

David Smith, John Downey + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323120940917

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Abstract

This article examines how and when populist discourses were mobilised within the 2016 UK European Union (EU) Referendum campaign, by examining the specific temporal conjunctions between the changing strategy of the official ‘Vote Leave’ campaign, British national newspaper reporting of the Referendum and shifts in public opinion. Our analysis shows that Vote Leave only started to utilise anti-elitist and exclusionary populist rhetoric at the mid-point of the campaign, in response to constricting political opportunities, but by so doing transformed the dynamic of the Referendum. We term this an example of ‘strategic populist ventriloquism’, where elite politicians appropriate the language of insurgency for political advantage, and argue that current conceptual frameworks on media and populism need to be broadened to accommodate these occasions.

Highlights

‘Brexit’, the term used to label the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU), has become characterised as a predictable manifestation of a populist wave sweeping across many nations (Eatwell and Goodwin, 2018; Norris and Inglehart, 2019)
We contend that a timesensitive analysis of the type we develop here is of intrinsic significance in understanding the Referendum outcome and in enhancing understanding of mainstream media responses to political populism
We begin our analysis by outlining the strategy that the official anti-EU campaign (Vote Leave (VL)) implemented during the referendum, and how this shifted

Summary

Introduction

‘Brexit’, the term used to label the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU), has become characterised as a predictable manifestation of a populist wave sweeping across many nations (Eatwell and Goodwin, 2018; Norris and Inglehart, 2019). Notwithstanding the previous point, in terms of immigration coverage our wider research showed that its temporal distribution in the press was replicated in national TV news coverage In this respect, the press analysis can be deemed as a ‘typical case sample’ – that is, telling us something about wider mainstream media responses to this part of the Referendum (see Deacon and Wring, 2017: 41–43). We begin our analysis by outlining the strategy that the official anti-EU campaign (Vote Leave (VL)) implemented during the referendum, and how this shifted We follow this with an analysis of the way this strategy interacted with and was mediated by the UK print media, in terms of its coverage of immigration and anti-elite rhetoric during the campaign.

12 May to 19 to 26 to 2 to 9 to 16 to 22

Concluding discussion

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