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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 18:5 (2019) ► pp.651–670

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“Immigration, that’s what everyone’s thinking about …”

The 2016 British EU referendum seen in the eyes of the beholder

ORCiD logo with link | University of Leicester
Published online: 19 August 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.19022.gue
Abstract
This article examines the 2016 British EU referendum and the domestic debates through citizens’ voices in the media, specifically on the emotions and narratives, on The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Express, the week before the referendum. British citizens felt, in their words, “bullied because of [their] political correctness” and pointed their anger and dissatisfaction against the EU (and Merkel’s) “obsession for open borders”. The analysis underlines that these emotions and narratives, combining immigration and sovereignty, have remained embedded in the post-Brexit days, and go back not just to Billig’s banal nationalism (1995), but show that voting Leave represented respect towards true British values, the “core country” as conceptualised by . 2000. Populism. Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. Powellism (Hampshire, James. 2018. “The Measure of a Nation.” The Political Quarterly. In advance to publication, accessed at: Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and Wright’s “encroanchment” of Englishness (Wright, Patrick S. 2017. “Turning Inward: Brexit, Encroanchment Narratives and the English as ‘Secret People’.” In European Union and Disunion: Reflections on European Identity, ed. by Ash Amin & Philip Lewis, 64–72. London: British Academy.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and the analysis on the immigration narrative explain how anti-immigration and sovereignty discourse is persisting and is influencing the social and political relation of Britain with Europe.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Britain, the EU and the British (print media) Eurosphere
  • 3.Collective identity and the other
  • 4.Research design
  • 5.“If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea”
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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Javadinejad, Arash
2024. Discursive Construction of Immigration Through the Lens of News Values in the Brexit Referendum. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses :41 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo
Guerra, Simona
2020. The politics of the EU as crisis, mobilization and catharsis. Comparative European Politics 18:6 ► pp. 982 ff. DOI logo

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