Katie Burrell / 11627360

Supervisor: Dr. Krisztina Lajosi-Moore

Second reader: Dr. S. Rajagopalan.

How did banal and contribute to the outcome of the ?

Abstract

This thesis offers an analysis of the discourse that contributed to the British public voting to Leave the . Brexit is frequently associated with and common rhetoric blames racism or bigotry. I suggest that Leave was successful because of a combination of two concepts. The first is , a term coined by Michael Billing defined as the omnipresence of routinely familiar habits or everyday representations of the that continually act as a reminder of nationhood. The second is Euroscepticism: the criticism of the European Union. My thesis attempts to argue that Brexit is not just a right-wing grievance and the support for leaving the EU was far more nuanced than is understood in Brexit narratives. Euroscepticism has also characterised traditionally left-wing British politics. I argue that the combination of banal nationalism and Euroscepticism portrayed in the British mainstream media impelled Britons to vote to leave the European Union. There were many arguments to Leave but these resonated with voters because of the unique combination of media coverage of the EU in Britain and the traditional ideologies dominating the British public sphere.

Keywords: Banal nationalism; Brexit; Euroscepticism; media; identity

Contents

Methodology ...... 4 Introduction ...... 7 1. Banal Nationalism ...... 8 1.1 My day survey ...... 13 1.2 Euroscepticism part of British culture? ...... 17 2. THE RIGHT REBELS ...... 20 2.1 Scapegoating migrants ...... 24 2.2 The rise of UKIP ...... 26 3. Brexit was not always right...... 37 3.1 Labour’s battle begins ...... 43 4. BeLeave the media...... 47 4.1 The media create their image of the EU ...... 50 5. It will be alright on the night...... 55 5.1 Picking sides and spreading lies ...... 56 5.2 The church of the NHS ...... 59 Conclusion ...... 67 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 72

Methodology

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the mainstream media can be used to analyse the ways in which Banal nationalism and Euroscepticism contributed to the outcome of the Brexit referendum. I will analyse politician’s speeches as well as their social media platforms. CDA does not characterise a subdiscipline or a certain field of discourse analysis but rather an explicitly critical approach, position or stance. It is typically multidisciplinary and especially focuses on the relations between discourse and society.1 In 1993, Teun van Dijk focused on the role of discourse in the (re)production and challenge of dominance. Defining dominance as the exercise of social power by elites, institutions or groups that result in social inequality.2 Analysing the variety of methods of discourse in Britain reveals a parallelism between discourse access and social power. A few individuals own the British media, in 2013 52.2% of online and print national news was controlled by just two individuals – and Lord Rothermere.3 This power involves control that pertain to action and cognition: the powerful group may limit the freedom of action of others, but also influence their mind.4 This thesis will be analysing these power structures that give authority to discourse. Politicians and the media have the authority and ability to create a discussion or to suppress it, potentially having a pervasive effect on public opinion.

Banal nationalism is the routinely familiar habits or everyday representations of the nation that continually act as a reminder of nationhood. Nations are reproduced as ‘the’ world5 and is seen by its citizens as a natural and legitimate ‘community.’ One of the most effective tools to keep the nation in existence is through the media. Politicians are in a privileged position as they have access to parliamentary debates and indirect access to the media. Due to large online and print readership of the media, it can mould public opinion. Due to the dominance of the British media and the power of the few men who control this form of discourse, they are able to manipulate their audience to believe the ‘preferred’ social

1 Teun A. van Dijk, ‘Aims of Critical Discourse Analysis,’ Japanese Discourse, Vol. I (1995) p.17. 2 Teun A. van Dijk, ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis, Discourse & Society,’ 4:2 (1993) p.250. 3 Ryan Curran, ‘British people think their media is the most biased and right-wing in – and they’re probably right,’ , 8th February 2016 4 Van Dijk: ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis,’ p.254. 5 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (Los Angeles, , and New Delhi: Sage, 1995) p.93 cognitions that are in the interest of the dominant group.6 Because the media has so much power in shaping public attitudes I believe analysis of it will be an extremely valuable way to study the way in which banal nationalism and Euroscepticism contributed to the outcome of Brexit. Most British citizens get their information on the EU from their national press or their politicians; if the few powers that control the context of the press choose to represent the EU in a negative light and alternative voices are lacking then this discourse has a profound effect.

Attacks, marginalisation and discrediting are some examples of properties of discourse of the dominant group. This is usually done to the powerless groups but at times it can be the elite attempting to discredit the elite. In times of , the “elite” can be powerless too. One example is The attempting to discredit Conservative MP, for meeting with Remainers. Because Grieve is a member of the powerful group he was able to ‘defend’ himself. On BBC Question Time on 14th June he responded to The Daily Mail’s accusations that he was “supping with the devil when he was meeting with Remainers”7 claimed ’s (previous editor of The Daily Mail) use of personal attacks creates “a level of debate which makes rational discussion impossible, and it’s deliberately designed to do it…he does it for the deliberate intention of trying to prevent people engaging in rational debate.”8 Powerful men that control the media are able to not only manipulate opinion but also exclude voices they do not approve of. Typical attacks are discrediting powerless groups, for example the alleged threat of immigrants to the dominant group. This is more successful as minorities do not have the same access as MPs.

The motivation behind my thesis was to look at Brexit from a different perspective, most books or articles focus on UKIP or the Conservative’s role and do not acknowledge - wing view and role in the Leave campaign. Another common attitude is to simplify analysis and lay the blame on one or two things, rather than acknowledge the multifaceted nature of Brexit. I want to look at both sides of the ’s view, as well as the differences between their arguments for Leave. I admit I will be coming from a biased position because

6 Van Dijk, ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis,’ p.280. 7 Jack Doyle, ‘Tory rebel Dominic Grieve insists he’s not out to destroy Brexit. So, what was he doing addressing a secretive meeting in the EU’s London HQ of those plotting to reverse it?,’ The Daily Mail, 13th June 2018 8 ‘Question Time,’ BBC iPlayer, 14th June 2018, accessed 16th June 2018, the result has affected me personally and I am not in favour of the outcome, but I believe acknowledging this will allow me to be as objective as possible. Concurring with van Dijk, “critical scholars cannot be aloof, let alone in a ‘neutral’ position and they should not worry about the interests or perspectives of those in power.”9 I will not be taking a neutral position, but will be one that is critical of the pro-Brexit press.

I began collecting sources by reading books on the subject. I started by reading ‘Brexit’ by Denis Macshane and ‘Revolt on the Right’ by and Robert Ford. Macshane’s book offered me a general picture of the history of the UK membership of the EU and Goodwin/Ford’s book led me to other sources regarding UKIP but, as I said, they only offered a right-wing point of view. This was helpful, but only for part of my thesis. For news articles I used a search engine and used key words, ‘Brexit’ and the names of MPs like ‘Farage’ or ‘Boris’ and then filtered by date. This was the best option when researching Labour support for Brexit as books regarding Brexit do not focus on this and even though Labour MPs like and were mentioned in ‘All out war’ by Tim Shipman, the only relevant sources I could find were online, either on ’s website, YouTube channel and interviews/articles in newspapers. Harold Clarke’s book ‘Brexit: why Britain voted to Leave the EU’ gave a valuable insight into the effects on the perceptions of the British public and Mair et al’s ‘Brexit, Trump and the media’ offered its own analysis of the effect of the media during the Brexit campaign and also numerous newspaper articles were sourced. also directed me to a list created by the EU Commission to debunk the many myths of the EU created by the British press over the years. When I searched for articles I would filter by year but focus on the ‘bigger’ names as they had more of an impact of public perception. The Economist was useful but only regarding fact checking, their combined print and online UK sales in the first six months of 2017 totalled 248,197,10 so it is not having much effect on public perceptions.11

9 Van Dijk, ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis’ p.280 10 ‘The Economist worldwide brand report January – June 2017,’ The Economist, accessed 15th June 2018 11 The Economist does have a strong online presence but access to their articles require a subscription. Introduction

On the 23rd June 2016 Britain voted to leave the European Union. There were many reasons British citizens felt they needed to but one of the most common was the perceived threat to the British . , the British Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016 created a video about his thoughts on the European Union in 2009 in the run up to the 2010 General election. He said, “The EU constitution, now called the Lisbon treaty, includes a massive transfer of power from the nation states of Europe to …I think we need powers to come back from Brussels to the nation states.”12 The video portrays the European Union in a very negative light and having watched that, it is surprising David Cameron campaigned to Remain. The British national identity has become a powerful part of one’s identity and this was utilised in the Brexit referendum to consolidate support for both the Leave and Remain campaign. It is not always obvious, but nationalism has a vital effect on ‘our’ daily lives and could be why, with the right language, the British citizens were so easily motivated to make a stand for their national identity.

This thesis intends to illustrate how ubiquitous banal nationalism juxtaposed with Euroscepticism was in the years leading up to the ephemeral Brexit campaign and analyse the way it was utilised by both sides, across the political spectrum. I will focus on both sides, Left and Right, along with the divisions within the Left and Right. My aim is to illustrate the more nuanced reality of Brexit instead of the typical portrayal of Brexit as a right-wing issue. By looking at the ubiquity of banal nationalist discourse, I will be able to show how effective banal nationalism was for Brexit and how its utilisation meant that perceptions were, at times, more important than facts. As newspaper readership in Britain is high I will analyse the role of the printed press, as well as MP’s speeches (which will be reported in these papers) and social media. I will evince the long history of Euroscepticism in Britain and, at times, recount a historical narrative but my focus will primarily be from 2014 as that was the year UKIP won the most votes in the European elections and Euroscepticism became a legitimate voice.

12 ‘David Cameron Promised EU Referendum in 2009,’ YouTube (JW C), uploaded 27th October 2011 1. Banal Nationalism

In both popular and academic writing nationalism is associated with those who struggle to create news states or with extreme right-wing politics. What is misleading about this accepted use of the word is that it seems to put nationalism on the periphery of Europe. Nationalism is seen to be the property of others, but not of ‘us.’13 This assumption implies that nationalism is only visible when there is a crisis but disappears once the crisis has ended. It is between times of crises that nationalism is reproduced in everyday life so that when a crisis does occur the citizens are willing to risk their lives ‘in the name of the nation’ Daily, nations are reproduced as nations and its citizens as nationals. For such daily reproductions to occur, one might hypothesize that a whole complex of beliefs, assumptions, habits, representations and practices must also be reproduced. Moreover, this complex must be reproduced in a banally mundane way, for the world of nations is the everyday world.14

The term ‘banal nationalism’ is introduced to cover these ideological habits which enable the established nations of the West to be reproduced.15 Banal does not mean benign, nations create armies, some nations possess nuclear weapons that a large proportion of the citizens support the maintenance, conveniently labelling it a deterrent.16 Assumptions need to be created on ordinary days, they can be seen bobbing about, brought home daily on the familiar tides of banal nationalism….the continual ‘flagging’ or reminding of nationhood.17 This continual reminding is so familiar, so continual, that it is not consciously registered as reminding, this allows ‘our’ nationalism to go unnoticed and lead ‘us’ to think that ‘others’ but not ‘ourselves’ are nationalists.18 In recent years there has been a decline in its support but there is still a large number of British citizens that believe the UK need nuclear weapons as a form of defence of their nation. Even if one does not support nuclear weapons there is

13 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.5. 14 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.6. 15 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.6. 16Emily Allen and Ben Farmer, ‘What is Trident? Britain’s nuclear deterrent explained,’ The Telegraph, 23rd January 2017 17 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.7. 18 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.7. a great proportion of the population that will support a national army and to maintain that the nation needs to be reproduced.

An article in from 2017 “Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence” is reporting on a referendum that could lead Catalan gaining independence from . This story had a lot of coverage because the Spanish government’s violent response to, what they considered, the illegal referendum of Catalonian independence. , a Catalan nationalist politician, it is reported, advised the referendum to go ahead despite opposition from the Spanish state and claims the “police brutality will shame the Spanish state for ever.”19 This rhetoric portrays actions of the police as the actions of the Spanish nation, and not individuals. This type of rhetoric is ubiquitous when reporting on the actions of politicians or the action of influential members of certain nations. The article is also written in a certain way that it expects the reader to understand national aspirations as there is no explanation of why the people of Catalan want to break away from Spain. This is treated as a ‘common sense’ and is found in academic writings as much as newspapers.20

It is seen to be ‘natural’ for one to want to fight for one’s and it is evident in the article and many more that reported on the subject that there is sympathy for the Catalans as the reader is expected to understand these national aspirations. A local woman in was interviewed and told the reporter “I’m here to fight for our rights and our language and for our right to live better and to have a future,”21 Evidently this woman believes it is her right to be independent of Spain. What one also notices when looking at reports on the matter is full support for the people of Catalonia, the people that want their independence. It is ‘natural’ that these citizens want their sovereignty and in a world of nations, the nation on the outside obviously support and understand their claim to sovereignty.

Although it is seen as natural for citizens to want their sovereignty, the Scottish referendum did not see as much international support as Catalonia would see three years later. An

19 Sam Jones, Stephen Bergen and agencies, ‘Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence,’ The Guardian, 2nd October 2017 20 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.13. 21 Sam Jones et al: ‘Catalan referendum:’ Economist article from September 2014, ‘Britain survives’ with the subheading ‘It was far too close for comfort. But Scots vote to stay in the ’22 was reporting on the result of the 2014 Scottish referendum that could have led to Scottish independence from Britain. Once the votes were counted and it was announced would not be leaving, the media (in especially), were in full support for the UK staying whole. There is very little sympathy for Scotland’s want for independence. The article begins with the ‘patriotic’ statement “The Union flag will fly” and “they ensured the continuation of the that shaped the modern world.” The reader is meant to understand national aspirations, just as long as it was for the United Kingdom and not the four nations within it. Although there was international support for Scottish independence, the typical position was not in support for Scotland leaving. The night of the referendum President Obama tweeted “The UK is an extraordinary partner for America and a force for good in an unstable world. I hope it remains strong, robust and united.”23 Even The Daily Mail did not support Scotland’s independence, asking on the day of the referendum ‘Is this the day Britain dies?’24 The same paper that called the judges in the High Court ‘Enemies of the people’ after they voted that the MPs (not the PM) must have a say on triggering Article 50 to start Britain’s exit for the European Union.25

Where did this ‘common sense’ attitude come from? Ernest Gellner argues that nationalism emerges only when the existence of the state “is already very much taken for granted.”26 It is argued that the rise of capitalism is connected to the rise of the nation state together with the introduction of printing where the replacement of Latin with vernacular languages and the spread of discursive literacy, necessary for capitalist development.27 Whatever the reason it is indisputable that nationhood has been established as the universal form of sovereignty and banal nationalism is what preserves it. The invention of traditions and past

22 Anonymous, ‘Britain survives,’ The Economist, 19th September 2014 23 Barack Obama’s tweet: ‘The UK is an extraordinary partner for America and a force for good in an unstable world. I hope it remains strong, robust and united.’ - bo” (@ObamaWhiteHouse, 17 September 2014) 24 James Chapman, ‘Is this the day Britain dies? Millions head to voting booths across Scotland as 170,000 Don’t Knows hold key to separation,’ The Daily Mail, 17th September 2014 25 Claire Phipps, ‘Brexit newspapers react to judges’ Brexit ruling: ‘Enemies of the people’,’ The Guardian, 4th November 2016 26 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.19. 27 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.22. conflicts assisted these creations. It is very rare that the creation of a nation-state was amicable. After each major European war, the map changed, and violence was seldom far from the surface.28

The question asked, why do ‘we’ not forget ‘our’ national identity and it is because through banal nationalism we are constantly reminded of it. We are reminded of it in such a “natural” way that people forget that their world has been historically constructed. The remembering, nevertheless, involves a forgetting, or rather there is a complex dialectic of remembering and forgetting.29

This remembering and forgetting can be found in everyday banal reminders of nationhood, in the U.S it is normal to see their flag decorating their daily life. The flag is a symbol of the nation and these symbols can also be seen on coins and bank notes. This banal nationalism can always turn into ‘hot’ nationalism, this is the nationalism that most people associate with the term nationalism. Every nation has their where sentiments of patriotic emotion, which the rest of the year have to be kept far from the business of ordinary life, can surge forth.30 What is convenient is this is labelled as , where ‘our’ loyalties to ‘our’ nation-state can be defended, even praised31 and that kind of rhetoric was evident on the Remain, but especially the Leave side for the Brexit referendum. Patriotism is seen as a defence of the nation and this kind of hyperbole was prevalent in the Leave campaign. (one of the key MPs backing Leave) was interviewed in Bournemouth during the campaign and claimed “I get the impression there are some people who believe we should leave the European Union but theirs is a quiet and polite patriotism” and he continues to dismiss claims that these voters should feel guilty for “that is quite wrong – these people believe in their country, they believe in what it is capable of if it has the freedom that it needs to thrive.”32 This idea that leaving the EU was a way to regain ‘our’ sovereignty was portrayed as patriotism because banal nationalism meant the citizens believed ‘their’ nation-state was worth protecting from any threat and Euroscepticism

28 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.28. 29 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.37. 30 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.45. 31 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.55. 32 Steve Hawkes, Lynn Davidson and Harry Cole, ‘BOJO’S RALLYING CRY urges Sun readers ‘with history in their hands’ to back Brexit,’ , 22nd June 2016 throughout the years meant, to many British citizens, that the EU was synonymous to that threat.

Ways of talking do not develop in social vacuums, but they are related to forms of life. The saluted and unsaluted flags are not stimuli that evoke ‘identity-relations’; they belong to the forms of life which constitute what could be called national identities.33 Michael Billig’s thesis of banal nationalism suggests that nationhood is near the surface of contemporary life and routinely familiar habits of language will be continually acting as reminders of nationhood.34 The crucial words of banal nationalism are often the smallest: ‘we’, ‘this’ and ‘here’, which are the words of linguistic ‘deixis.’35 This deixis is not just found in politicians’ speeches but in mass media which, in Britain especially, has a significant reach. From October 2016 until September 2017 more Britons consumed news brands across print and digital than the population of Australia: 47.5 million people and only 23 million people in Australia.36 British brands will never miss an opportunity to celebrate occasions that are considered special to the British public, in 2016 Twining’s introduced a limited-edition tea to celebrate ‘the’ Queen’s 90th birthday37 as the Royal family are considered, to many, very important to the British public. One would also find food produce in the supermarket with a greater extent of promotion for British brands. pub regularly advertises ‘the Great British roast’ or the local café with its ‘all day English fry up.’ The homeland is constantly in your face but in such a banal way it is not surprising every citizen does not even realise it.

The deixis of the homeland invokes the national ‘we’ and places ‘us’ within ‘our’ homeland.38 In 1993 Michael Billig conducted a day survey on the 28th June to demonstrate the ‘flagging’ on ordinary days. At the time Britain had the second highest newspaper readership in the world and on this day, he studied ten major daily, national newspapers: Daily Star, , The Sun (aimed at the working class) The Daily Mail, and Today and the rest aimed towards the middle class, , The Guardian, Daily

33 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.60. 34 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.93. 35 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.94. 36 ‘Newsbrands,’ NRS, October 2016 – September 2017, accessed 16th Feb 2018 37 ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MA’AM!,’ Twinings latest news and articles, As of 14th June 2018, Twinings’ webpage listed 38 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.107. Telegraph and Independent.39 Newspaper readership has declined since but has been subsidised by online sources as online sources are much easier to access and easily updated throughout the day. Most politicians have , as well as journalists and other social media platforms, such as Facebook, allows data to reach even further at a much greater rate.

1.1 My day survey

In 1993 Billig found banal nationalism in every paper, whether left or right, in the national, international, weather and sporting pages. If one were to study the same papers but their online articles it would be reasonable to believe this ‘flagging’ of the nation is just as ubiquitous. Total unique visitors of online news sources from July 2016 until June 2017 were much higher than print readership in 1993. The Sun sold over three and a half million copies per day for the first six months of 1993 and was the nation’s best-selling newspaper40 and its computer reach in July 2016 for a year also reached more than three and a half million unique visitors, but The Guardian boasted 7,060,000 unique visitors, 6,722,000 and The Daily Mail 6,244,00041 which meant The Sun was Britain’s fourth highest online news source.

Michael Billig discovered these papers were littered with headlines that flagged Britishness and there is no longer a need for a celebration to be national.42 On the 5th March 2018 it would not be surprising for one to find similar celebrations of Britishness across news headlines. I will not look at every news source but two from the left (The Guardian and Independent) and two from the right (The Daily Mail and The Sun) and compare to the BBC as it is impartial. Today every news source is reporting on the Oscars, an American award ceremony. The Daily Mail and The Sun have focused on the British winner Rachel Shenton with their top story on her sign language Oscar speech.43 The nation is already flagged in the title where the journalist mentions Rachel was a former Hollyoaks actress (a British soap),

39 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.110. 40 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.110. 41 ‘NRS PADD July 2016 – June 2017, NRS,’ accessed 16th Feb 2018 42 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.113. 43 Marlene Lenthang, Amie Gordon and Keiligh Baker, ‘Viewers praise former Hollyoaks actress Rachel Shenton for delivering her Oscars victory speech in sign language after she made a promise to her deaf six-year-old British co-star in The Silent Child,’ The Daily Mail, 5th March 2018 and she made a promise to her ‘British co-star.’ Upon opening the article, it is mentioned Rachel is British three times and that she delivered her speech in ‘British’ sign language that led to a lot of online praise. The article also includes screenshots of Tweets praising the actress for her inclusivity. Rachel accepted an award for best short film44 but in the British press, because she is a British actress, accepting an award for the British short film this is ‘top story’ news and the article is littered with celebrations of Britishness. The Guardian, BBC and The Independent is far more impartial but even they can be seen celebrating the nation. The Independent early mention of the British director, Christopher Nolan’s win with the ‘war epic’ Dunkirk and British actor Gary Oldman’s portrayal of ex British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill in the Darkest Hour. The first words of their article are of British actress ‘Helen Mirren’45 BBC make sure they mention Gary Oldman’s win even though the article mainly focuses on Frances Mcdormand’s win.46 The Guardian is far more neutral but again, Gary Oldman’s win is ‘top story’ news.

What is interesting about national news sources is how it promotes the nation but at the same time portrays the outside world in a negative light, to create an ‘us’ and ‘them’. Bad things may happen in Britain, but journalists will make sure to depict Britain in a positive light while international news stories will more often than not be negative, to make ‘us’ happy ‘we’ are safe in ‘our’ homeland. The Sun’s world news include stories such as a savage on a 1 year old baby in Australia, the story of a man in streaming on Facebook live covered in blood after killing his wife and villagers cutting open a crocodile to find a man’s arms and legs inside in Borneo.47 The Daily Mail also covers the German Facebook Live murder but lead with a headline on whether will leave the EU (typical anti-EU reporting) and (also mentioned in The Sun) a man masturbating on a plane that took off from Malaysia.48 The Guardian also leads with the story on Italy potentially leaving EU and includes a story on an Aid convoy entering ‘besieged Syrian enclave’49 This may be seen

44 Jim Donnelly, ‘Oscar Winners 2018: see the full list,’ The Oscars, 5th March 2018 45 Christopher Hooton, ‘Oscars 2018: The Shape of water charms Academy at politically charged awards,’ The Independent, 5th March 2018 46 Anonymous, ‘Oscars 2018: The Shape of Water and Frances McDormand rule,’ BBC, 5th March 2018 47 Front page of The Sun’s world news page 48 Front page of The Daily Mail’s world news 49 Kareem Shaheen and Peter Beaumont, ‘Dozens killed in single day in Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta,’ The Guardian, 5th March 2018 as positive because the civilians are receiving aid but not one citizen reading this will wish they were in Syria over Britain. BBC and The Independent lead with similarly negative stories from around the world. Every national news source gives off the impression that the homeland is homely while, in contrast, the outside world is not. This constant pattern of reporting unsurprisingly encourages loyalty to the nation.

At the time of reporting the storm known as ‘Emma’ was affecting much of Europe but the national press was focusing on its effects only on Britain, with a plethora of articles on its aftermath. The Independent’s leading story in February ‘Coldest week of winter to bring snow to most of the country’50 This is a perfect example of the deixis of the nation. The title uses ‘the country’ as the journalist assumes the reader will know the country is Britain, there is no need to say the location as the ‘common-sense’ assumptions mean that ‘we’ know the country is ‘our’ country. The pages for all news sources are littered with stories about the storm’s effects on Britain. This may be a negative portrayal of the country as supermarket shelves are empty and there are now risks of flooding, but the journalists will attempt to ‘flag’ the homeland with more positive twists. The Guardian went with a story on the ‘heroes’ of the storm that were ‘handing out cakes on the A1’ and ‘housing the homeless’51 There may have been a terrible storm, but the citizens of Britain proved themselves heroes when there were people in need of help. What is certain is that all weather reporting will focus on the weather the nation is experiencing and it is very rare to hear what the weather is like around the globe, unless it is of significance. On this particular day, The Netherland’s experiences with the storm was in British news as the locals in Amsterdam and other locations in the were able to skate on the canals due to the freezing temperatures and another article (from one of those skaters in Oostzaan) was on a kingfisher frozen in the ice.52 There will be some space allocated to other nation’s weather but the bulk of it will be taken up by what the nation is experiencing. A typical news report will include a map of Britain, which is not actually labelled as Britain: the national

50 Ryan Butcher, ‘UK weather: ‘Coldest week of winter’ to bring snow to most of country as temperatures hit -7C,’ The Independent, 4th February 2018 51 Kevin Rawlinson, ‘’He made my day better’: everyday heroes emerge from snow chaos,’ The Guardian, 2nd March 2018 52 Jane Dalton, ‘Kingfisher freezes solid as ice take to frigid Amsterdam canals,’ The Independent, 3rd March 2018 geography is presumed to be recognizable53 and if the map includes surrounding countries Britain will always be central.

Michael Billig noticed “a swirling flurry of flags was waving for ‘us’, ‘our victories’ and ‘our heroes.’54 The parallel between sports and warfare is not only evident in sports but was clearly evident on both sides of the Brexit campaign. Two of the films that won Oscars this year were celebrating British achievements of the Second World War, Dunkirk and The Darkest Hour. Dunkirk is the story about ordinary British citizens crossing the channel in their boats to rescue 300,000 stranded personnel. An event seen as a British victory that was exploited by the national press led to the coining of the term ‘Dunkirk spirit’ that is defined as “an attitude of being strong in a difficult situation and refusing to accept defeat”55 and is still used in Britain to this day. Darkest hour is set in the same time but from the point of view of Winston Churchill and his refusal to negotiate with Hitler. The film ends with the famous ‘we shall fight on the beaches’56 speech that has culminated in the idea that the British can succeed at anything, even if they stand alone. This British history is well known in Britain and is a common theme in British films and television shows. This has led to the design of the most recent five-pound note including a 1941 portrait of Churchill, with the quote “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” undoubtedly its intention to evoke strong feelings about the great history of ‘our’ past. The German ambassador felt this Second World War image of Britain fed Euroscepticism, that some Brexiters were motivated by a sense of national identity built around UK standing alone.57 It is strange that both sides of the campaign used Churchill’s image to claim he would have fought for their cause. The Mirror published an article with “proof” that Churchill opposed membership of the EU58 and BBC wrote an article with Churchill’s grandson, Sir MP claiming the opposite.59 Churchill died over half a century ago, he is a significant British

53 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.116-7. 54 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.120. 55 Rachel Lewis, ‘Why the British Still Talk About the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’,’ Time, 20th July 2017 56 ‘We Shall Fight on the Beaches,’ Winston Churchill speech of 1940, accessed 14th June 2018 57 Patrick Wintour, (Interview) ‘German ambassador: second world war image of Britain has fed Euroscepticism,’ The Guardian, 29th January 2018 58 David Maddox, ‘’We are with them, but not of them!’ Even Sir Winston Churchill opposed membership of EU,’ The Express, 2nd June 2016 59 Nicholas Watt, ‘EU referendum: Churchill would back Remain, Soames says,’ BBC, 10th May 2016 historical figure and his image is easily exploited to encourage the citizens to feel proud of ‘their’ nation.

1.2 Euroscepticism part of British culture?

After the Brexit referendum result it is no surprise to learn that the term ‘Eurosceptic’ can be traced back to the United Kingdom. In the mid-1980s it began to be used by journalists and politicians to refer to Members of Parliament within the Conservative party who had reservations about the path of .60 The Treaty was signed in 1992 by then British Prime Minister, and took European integration several significant steps forward, one of the most important decisions was to begin the process to create a completely new currency: the .61 The was viewed as a major encroachment on UK sovereignty on the basis that it strengthened the power of EU institutions, set the clock ticking towards monetary union and created European citizenship and was a key turning point for opposition to the European Union.62 Ex-Prime Minister, believed it was “a recipe for national suicide.”63 Paul Taggart, a political professor, defines party based Euroscepticism as a term expressing the ‘idea of contingent or qualified opposition, as well as incorporating outright and unqualified opposition to the process of European integration.’64 In the mid-1980s the term ‘Eurosceptic’ was conceived: in 1993 the party that fought for the Leave campaign, the United Kingdom Independence Party was created, only winning 1% of the vote in the 1994 European elections to a second place finish in the 2009 European elections65 and in 2016 a successful result in the Brexit referendum. The range of Euroscepticism has evolved significantly over time and is very hard to define as a result, but a universal Eurosceptic grievance is the EU’s threat to national sovereignty. Banal nationalism has created an identity within the nation and any outside threat to that part of one’s identity must be stopped. Grievances with the EU did not

60 Leruth, Benjamin, Nicholas Startin and Simon Usherwood, The Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism, (New York: Routledge, 2018), p.4. 61 Denis Macshane, Brexit How Britain will leave Europe (London: I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2015), p.81. 62 Leruth et al: The Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism, p.101. 63 Macshane: Brexit, p.56. 64 Leruth et al: The Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism, p.6. 65 Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, Revolt on the Right: Explaining support for the in Britain, (Oxen, New York: Routledge, 2014), p.76. suddenly appear in 2016 when the Conservative party called a referendum on British membership. The decade before saw Euroscepticism leave the fringes and enter the mainstream, made possible with many citizens feeling their nation was threatened, a perception created and maintained by banal nationalism.

Euroscepticism did not appear in Britain when Britain entered the EEC though. Menno Spiering suggests that Britain has had a long cultural history of Euroscepticism, something visible a lot longer than the European Union, let alone the year Britain entered, as it was known then, the European Economic Community. Looking at the general perceptions of identity and how they are formed by the means of oppositional thinking, by contrasting the Self and the Other. The British are not the French, the French are not German.66 In this case, Britain and Europe and like banal nationalism, borrowing from Friedrich Nietzsche, this oppositional thinking is so prevalent in British society that it is practically invisible.67 This relationship is determined by strong cultural notions of difference. One event that has a big role in more recent Euroscepticism is the Second World War. There is a grand national narrative that saw Britain standing alone against the fascist dictators of Europe, a Nazi invasion thwarted in the ‘Battle of Britain,’ the ‘Blitz’ bombing raids in ‘our’ cities, a country united in defiance and the eventual defeat of the Nazis and victory.68 The war only confirmed and deepened an existing and deep-rooted British perspective of Europe and the other.69 It also deepened the British exceptionalism discourse and since the 1960s, every major Prime Ministerial speech on Britain and Europe contain a passage on the war and Britain’s special role withstanding Germany.70 A dangerous result of this is the general conflation that saw ‘the Nazis’ and ‘the Germans’ with ‘the Europeans.’ A month before the referendum, Conservative MP Boris Johnson made similar comparison when he said, ‘The EU’s disastrous failures have fuelled tensions between member states and allowed Germany to grow in power, “take over” the Italian economy and “destroy” .’71 It is common

66 Menno Spiering, A Cultural history of British Euroscepticism, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p.20. 67 Spiering: A Cultural history of British Euroscepticism, p.22. 68 Spiering: A Cultural history of British Euroscepticism, p.9. 69 Spiering: A Cultural history of British Euroscepticism, p.8. 70 Spiering: A Cultural history of British Euroscepticism, p.10. 71 Tim Ross, ‘Boris Johnson: The EU wants a , just as Hitler did,’ The Telegraph, 15th May 2016 Eurosceptic rhetoric to compare EU bureaucrats to Hitler or the Union to the Third Reich. On the 15th May 2016 Boris Johnson was interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph in which he compared the ’s quest for a Europe to Hitler’s Third Reich.72 Consequently, UKIP MP asserted “Nazi’s created ‘basic plan’ for the European Union.”73

Reminiscing British involvement in the Second World War is not the only evocation visible when fighting against the European Union. The question of national sovereignty has long been justified with a phrase coined by Hugh Gaitskell in 1962 where he claimed British participation would see “the end of a thousand years of history.”74 This phrase is still used to this day and centres on a series of seminal events, each building on the former and leading to the next. Starting with the Magna Carta in 1215 was followed by the English Reformation in 1534, then the Bill of Rights in 1689, followed by various democratizing Reform Acts of 1832-1867 followed by a host of victories over foreign dictators to culminate in Victory on 8th May 1945.75 After the Brexit referendum the Conservative MP, Jacob Rees Mogg utilised this rhetoric and called on British history to mobilise support for Brexit. He insisted Brexit is “so important in the history of ‘our’ country. This is Magna Carta, it’s the Burgesse coming at Parliament, it’s the great reform bill, it’s the Bill of rights, it’s Waterloo, it’s Agincourt, it’s Crecy. We win all of these things.”76 Three days before the referendum, Suella Fernandes began an article advocating for Brexit which read “On 15 June 1215 King John put his seal upon Magna Carta.”77 This way of presenting British history portrays ‘our’ history as what is right, what is good and what is superior. It is ‘our’ identity and the (perceived) European threat to ‘our’ 1000 years of history must be thwarted.

72 Tim Shipman, All Out War, (London: Harper Collins, 2017), p.283. 73 Jon Stone, ‘Nazis created ‘basic plan’ for European Union, UKIP MEP Gerard Batten says,’ The Independent, 16th May 2016 74 Spiering: A Cultural history of British Euroscepticism, p45 75 Spiering: A Cultural history of British Euroscepticism, p54 76 Jack Maidment, ‘Jacob Rees-Mogg compares Brexit to battle of Agincourt, Waterloo and Trafalgar,’ The Telegraph, 3rd October 2017 77 Suella Fernandes, ‘Britain needs Brexit so it can decide its own fate without asking permission from European judges,’ The Telegraph, 20th June 2016 2. THE RIGHT REBELS

Between 1995 and 2015 the number of immigrants from other European Union countries living in the UK more than tripled from 0.9 million to 3.3 million.78 The fear of immigrants as criminals, as a strain on public services or stealing British jobs is ubiquitous in the media, UKIP politicians and the attitude of many of the general public. The referendum was a way for many to stop the free movement of EU nationals so only the British public could benefit from British services and jobs. In May 2016 the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) with the London School of Economics (LSE) conducted research into the impact of Brexit, one of which was the impact of immigration on the UK. The results revealed something very different. It found EU immigrants were more educated, younger and more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits than the UK-born. Around 44% have some form of higher education compared with only 23% of the UK-born.79 The following year The Economist found the UK was actually benefiting the most from EU citizens than any other EU member. 78% of immigrants to Britain aged 25-49 are employed (the best in Europe), compared to 68% in Germany and 58% in .80 The ‘lump of labour fallacy’ is the idea that immigrants take the jobs of native workers because there is only a finite number of jobs or fixed number of hours.81 This is incorrect, because as immigrants also consume local services and goods, this increases demand and so raises job prospects of those who produce those goods and services. Research revealed the economic rate of UK-born workers actually goes up and down with the economic cycle, so too do wages.82 This is displayed in Figure 4, 5 and 6 below. This research went even further and examined whether areas of the UK that had larger influxes of EU immigrants also had worse job and wage outcomes for the UK-born relative to other areas.83 Again, their research revealed there was no relationship (positive

78 Wadsworth, Jonathan, Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano and John Van Reenen, ‘Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK,’ (2016), Brexit Analysis No. 5, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science. 79 Wadsworth et al: ‘Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK,’ (2016) 80 Anonymous, ‘Britain reaps outsize benefits from EU’s free movement,’ The Economist, 15th September 2017 81Tejvan Pettinger, ‘Lump of labour fallacy – immigration,’ Economics help, 17th August 2016 82 Wadsworth et al: “Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK”, (2016) 83 Wadsworth et al: “Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK”, (2016) or negative) on unemployment rates of those born in the UK. Figure 8, 9 and 10 demonstrate this and the lack of effect of immigration on wages on all UK workers.

NOTE – If immigration increased unemployment or wages the red line would slope upwards

2.1 Scapegoating migrants

On 19th February 2016 David Cameron secured a deal to “limit the access of union workers newly entering its labour market to in-work benefits for a total period of up to four years from the commencement of employment” in the UK, of any other member state, can show that EU migrants are “putting an excessive pressure on the proper functioning of its public services.”84 Two months later, Michael Gove wrote an article for The Times, ‘Soviet-style control freaks are a threat to our independence,’ claiming “public services such as the NHS will face an unquantifiable strain as millions more become EU citizens and have the right to move to the UK…this is a direct and serious threat to our public services, standard of living and ability to maintain social if we accept continued membership.”85 It would seem that EU migrants were a burden to the British tax payer and its public services. As illustrated above immigrants had no effect on unemployment or wages for the British. For public services and welfare payments, research has found EU immigrants have not had a neutral effect but actually had a positive impact. Dustmann and Frattini found that EU immigrants paid more in taxes than they received in welfare payments and in the period 1995-2011 the fiscal cost of natives cumulated to £591 billion, EEA immigrants contributed 10% more than natives (in relative terms) and non-EEA immigrant contributions were almost 9% lower.86 Not only are they fiscally contributing more than they are taking out, but they are also filling jobs that are propping up British public services. In 2016, The Royal College of Physicians produced the report ‘underfunded, underdoctored, overstretched: The NHS in 2016’ The self-explanatory report exposes the lack of medical staff in the NHS. Following the Brexit result the Institute for Public Policy Research urged the government to offer those EU nationals already working for the NHS citizenship, otherwise the NHS would collapse. 55,000 EU nationals were working in the English NHS and 10% of the UK’s registered doctors were an EU national.87 Not only are EU migrants filling jobs in an

84 , ‘EU deal: What David Cameron asked for… and what he actually got,’ The Telegraph, 14th June 2016 85 Michael Gove, ‘Soviet-style control freaks are a threat to our independence,’ The Times, 25th April 2016 86 Dustmann, C. and T. Frattini (2014) ‘The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK.’ Economic Journal 124: F593-643. 87 Hayden Smith, ‘NHS would collapse if it wasn’t for immigrants, experts say,’ The Independent, 25th August 2016 understaffed NHS but as EU nationals are younger, they are less likely to use the health services, making them less likely to be a strain on the system.88

There are often times the Eurosceptic press and politicians will bring up free movement and its threat to Britain but, just like the misconceptions towards immigration, free movement is not as free as its portrayal in the media or claims of Eurosceptic politicians. The free movement area of the EU is formally known as the “.” The was signed in 1990 and first implemented in 1995 to include seven EU states. Today most EU states are part of this agreement which abolishes checks between participating countries.89 The United Kingdom never signed this agreement, so movement is not as free as the Eurosceptics like to portray. If immigration (especially from the EU) is in fact beneficial to Britain and free movement is not exactly free movement for Britain, why is immigration seen as such a threat to so many British citizens? There is no evidence to prove immigrants are any more criminal than British national. In fact, the rise in crime rate is more often directed at them than a product of them. 31 British police forces showed 1,546 racially or religiously aggravated offences were recorded in the two weeks up to and including the day of the referendum. In the fortnight immediately after the poll, the number climbed by almost half to 2,241.90 One quote from Michael Gove has become synonymous with the typical Brexit rhetoric and could explain why the Leave campaign was successful. On the 3rd June 2016 Michael Gove was interviewed on and when Faisal Islam gave him a list of experts that believed Brexit would be harmful for Britain, Gove replied “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts.”91 He continued “with people with acronyms saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”92 That interview was riddled with ‘patriotic’ rhetoric with claims from Gove that he was acting in the interest of the UK but that initial quote became synonymous with Vote Leave.

88 Wadsworth et al: ‘Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK,’ (2016) 89 ‘Schengen Area,’ Policies, European Commission, Last modified 14th June 2018 90 Katie Forster, ‘Hate crimes soared by 41% after Brexit vote, official figures reveal,’ The Independent, 13th October 2016 91 Harry Mance, ‘Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove,’ , 3rd June 2016 92 Harry Mance, ‘Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove,’ Financial Times, 3rd June 2016 2.2 The rise of UKIP

Billig argues that many academics reserve the term ‘nationalism’ for outbreaks of ‘hot’ nationalist passion, which arise in times of social disruption.93 It is as if nationalism suddenly disappears but evidentially nationalism is always there, but in its banal form. If nationalism is seen as the ideology of the right wing, then it is definitely reserved for parties like the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP. UKIP was formed by professor in his office at the London School of Economics in 1993 but for much of its early history it barely even registered in national politics.94 In their early years UKIP were mainly seen as a single-issue party but with the extension of their policies that had changed by 2009 and as a result their support surged in the European elections and by 2014 they had become the largest party in Britain in the , at the expense of the three main parties, Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats.95 This was not reflected in national politics as they did not win a single seat in the 2010 general election and only won one seat (of 650) in the 2015 elections, which was regained by the Conservative party in the 2017 snap election.96 The difference between British and European elections can explain this. British elections are first past the post and European is proportional representation. With proportional representation there is no need to vote ‘tactically’, like so many voters do in British general elections. In the European election if a party wins 20% of the vote then they will get 20% of the MEPs (Member of European Parliament) but with first past the post a party can win 20% of the vote but if it’s spread across the country then it could mean fewer than 20% of the MPs. This was illustrated in the 2015 general election when UKIP won 13% of the vote but was only rewarded with 0.2% of the seats – 1 seat.97

UKIP are famed for their strong nationalist rhetoric but even they are guilty of using banal nationalism to get their message across. Billig’s point is that it is not always intentional. Banal nationalism is so ingrained, so natural, that it is not intentional. If you looked at their original logo and its use of the Great British Pound, the symbol of British currency, one

93 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.44. 94 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right p.2. 95 Macshane: Brexit p.160. 96 ‘Elections 2017’ Results, BBC, last modified 16th August 2017 97 Leruth et al: The Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism, p.102. would see evidence of banal nationalism. Even the use of United Kingdom in their name is a promotion of the nation and ‘Independence’ because national aspirations are ‘natural’ and in the interest of the nation. UKIP has recently changed its logo that ‘flags’ the nation even more. The pound has been replaced with a lion and under the acronym UKIP the words “for the nation.”98 There has been some controversy because it bears a very strong resemblance to the logo of the English Premier league99 but the lion is a very British (or English) symbol. The Royal coat of arms of Britain (that can be seen on the front of the British ) portrays a lion and a unicorn, the lion representing England and the unicorn Scotland.100 The use of a lion is obviously an intentional banal use of a British symbol but is very telling that the symbol of England was used. The carefully chosen words “for the nation” also meant to give the impression that the party is acting in the interests of the citizens of the United Kingdom.

A lot of thought is put into brands; something many people take for granted. It is not an accident that the ‘Stronger In’ group in the Brexit campaign used red, white and blue in their logo, the colours of the British flag.101 Both sides of the campaign knew (even if it was not consciously) that there needed to be a link to the nation, banal nationalism is so effective that the logo had to represent the nation. UKIP was originally the Anti-Federalist league, but Sked believed ‘anti’ was too negative so it was replaced with a more positive name.102

UKIP is not known for its banal nationalism, in its later years anyway. Alan Sked eventually left the party and denounced it claiming it had “grown into this hideous, racist, populist, xenophobic, Islamophobic thing.”103 UKIP was originally known as a single-issue party but, wanting to get more support, included policies that mattered to the public in its updated manifesto. Europe became a symbol of the problems in British society and perceived threats to the nation. Unresponsive and out of touch elites in Brussels and Westminster; a breakdown in respect for authority and British traditions; and most importantly, the onset

98 ‘UKIP Logos and Other artwork,’ Logos, accessed 14th June 2018 99 Peter Walker, ‘Ukip causes Premier League clash with choice of new logo,’ The Guardian, 29th September 2017 100 ‘Royal Coat of Arms,’ Britroyals, accessed 14th June 2018 101 ‘About StrongerIn,’ StrongerIn, accessed 14th June 2018 102 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right p.22. 103 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right p.116. of mass immigration.104 Immigrants are an easy scapegoat for society’s problems and UKIP was not the only party to latch onto this. The EU expansion in 2004 did not help, nor the refugee crisis in 2015 that led to a huge number of Muslim migrants entering EU member states.

The Federation of Poles of Great Britain conducted a report in 2009 that found The Daily Mail had written 80 ugly headlines about the dishonest caricatures of Polish people in Britain, this in turn led to an incitement of hate and contempt towards the Poles. There was also a significant rise in violent xenophobic attacks on Poles.105 The Daily Mail is infamous for its anti-immigrant rhetoric and the British judge, Brian Leveson, set up an inquiry in 2011 that found “There is certainly clear evidence of misreporting of European issues.”106 This misinformation was rife in the reporting of the 2015 refugee crisis, and the EU was obviously to blame for this sudden surge of Muslim migrants. A cartoon published in The Daily Mail in November 2015, comparable to Nazi propaganda of 1939, attacked the free movement of the EU and Muslim immigrants. This cartoon evokes fear of free movement as it is allowing ominous Muslim figures to enter Britain. A woman wearing a hijab and men holding prayer mats means they are undoubtedly Muslim and the inclusion of rats gives the impression of a ‘swarm of rats.’ A visible gun implies terrorist.

Source: The Daily Mail, ‘MAC ON…Europe’s open ’

104 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right p.146. 105 Macshane: Brexit, p.169. 106 Macshane: Brexit, p.169. It is a common belief that most of UKIP’s supporters were disgruntled Conservatives. UKIP may have wooed a few voters that previously voted Conservative, but earlier general election turnout paints a different picture.

In 2001 ’s Labour party won by a landslide but with only a 59% turnout meant millions of voters were not bothering to vote. A British Election study that same year found 26% of voters thought there was not much difference between Labour and Conservative.107 Professor Matthew Goodwin and Robert Ford studied the rise of UKIP and found the bulk of their support mostly came from what is known as the ‘left behind’ voters. These voters are a group of the British electorate that are diminishing so are no longer taken into consideration during elections. In 1964 for every voter that attended university there were 14 who left school with no qualifications, by 2010 that group was almost equal in size.108 If the working- class and lower educated groups of voters shrink so too does their electoral significance.109 Left behind voters were older, white and poorly educated working class. They were voters of the 1950s and most grew up in economic depression and war prized ‘material’ values. They are more likely to be undercut by immigrant workers with more skills or willing to work for less. This group also have a more assertive sense of nationalism. A British Social Attitude Survey found they were more likely to believe British national identity is something acquired through ancestry, birth and cultural tradition, therefore not open to migrants and ethnic minorities.110 It is no surprise ‘traditional’ ideas of Britishness were strongly emphasised in UKIP campaigns.111 The left behind, typically on lower incomes and more likely to have left school at 16 struggle to see immigration as beneficial, economically and socially. They are more likely to want immigration reduced significantly and free movement of the EU makes controlling immigration impossible. The lack of education may probably explain why reports on the benefits of EU membership did very little to stop their Euroscepticism.

Euroscepticism alone was not what saw UKIP support grow; there were more than enough Eurosceptic MPs in the Conservative party, a party well established in British politics. Although it is evident the left behind voters were more likely to also be Eurosceptic, Europe

107 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.130. 108 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.117. 109 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.116. 110 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.120. 111 This can be found on their website and their social media platforms was not the only thing on their minds. The changing face of Britain saw British attitudes change and UKIP would need to acknowledge that if it wanted to see support grow. In 2001 UKIP only won 0.5% of the vote share at the British general election112 and in 2005 less than 10% of voters considered Europe as one of the most important issues facing Britain.113 The journalist Toby Helm reported “it is difficult not to feel a little sorry for UKIP, a one-issue party whose issues has failed to surface at all.”114 Despite this, UKIP saw its support grow when Europe was very low on voters’ list of concerns.115 Voters were more interested on domestic policies like the NHS, education, crime, defence, the economy and pensions, policies that at the time UKIP had very little to say on.116 Immigration slowly moved up on the voters’ agenda, rising from 11.5% in 2000, to 21% in 2002 and 31% in 2005 as one of the most important issues facing the country.117 In 2005 UKIP was not able to take advantage of these concerns (as the Conservatives had wider appeal and were tackling the matter) but decided that year to expand its domestic appeal. Funnily enough, UKIP’s surge in support in the 2009 European elections had very little to do with immigration or other domestic policies, but the widespread abuse of the British MP expenses system. The European elections were turned into an outlet for public anger and UKIP won 13 seats with a second- place result.118 The next year was the general election but the first past the post system was not encouraging for UKIP.

By 2010 immigration had moved up to become the second most important issue for voters, behind the economy and above all unemployment.119 UKIP was aware of this and having expanded its appeal and its reach in the 2009 European elections it launched its campaign that put the blame on the EU. 2009 also saw the creation of the far-right hate group ‘The English Defence League’ or EDL.120 This group targeted prominent Muslim communities and

112 Toby Helm, ‘Strange case of the European dog that didn’t manage one bark,’ The Telegraph, 4th May 2005 113 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.63. 114 Toby Helm, ‘Strange case of the European dog that didn’t manage one bark,’ The Telegraph, 4th May 2005 115 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.185. 116 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.63. 117 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.64. 118 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.75-6. 119 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.78. 120 Matthew Taylor, ‘English Defence League: Inside the violent world of Britain’s new far right,’ The Guardian, 28th May 2010 epitomised the growing concern within the British public towards Muslim immigrants. These concerns were also reflected in British Survey Attitudes that revealed at the time of the 2010 general election that less than 25% of respondents held positive views about Islam,121 an attitude certainly fuelled by the media. In 2010 the most prominent symbol of Islamophobia was the hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri who was arrested in 2004 on terrorism charges.122 In 2010 the media coverage was extensive. It was not until 2012 that he was extradited to the US and the media made sure to report regularly on the delay as a direct result of the EU Human Rights Bill. The Daily Mail, never one to miss an opportunity to report negatively on the EU, published an article in July 2010 filled with anti-EU rhetoric and Islamophobia. The article ‘European Human Rights court halts extradition of race-hate preacher Abu Hamza to U.S.’123 The journalist makes sure to mention the delay in the “hate- preacher’s” extradition is because of “European judges” and the “interference by European Convention on Human Rights in the British justice system.” So far it cost “the public purse £1.1 million in legal aid” and in the meantime he “continues to live off the fat of the British taxpayer.” This article is effectively utilising the effectiveness of banal nationalism to direct the publics’ hatred towards the EU and Islam simultaneously. The British justice system is powerless to extradite the Muslim hate-preacher because of the EU and ‘its’ Human Rights.

These anxieties about British Muslims had links to Britain’s first experience of suicide bombings in 2005124 and the ongoing war in or even the insignificant number of British Muslims that “threaten” the British way of life that always had prominent coverage in the media.125 With growing concern towards Muslims, the recent expenses scandal and second place in the European elections, UKIP began its campaign for the 2010 general election. All politicians ‘flag’ the nation but banal nationalism is prevalent in UKIP’s 2010 Party Election Broadcast on 6th May 2010. It begins with an introduction from MP, Frank Maloney.

121 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.80. 122 Anonymous, ‘Abu Hamza profile,’ BBC, 9th January 2015 123 Jack Doyle, ‘European human rights court halts extradition of race-hate preacher Abu Hamza to U.S.,’ The Daily Mail, 9th July 2010 124 Duncan Campbell and Sandra Laville, ‘British suicide bombers carried out London attacks, say polices,’ The Guardian, 13th July 2005 125 Reports on Muslims protesting events such as armistice were always blown out of proportion in the news and exploited by the far-right. In 2010 35 Muslims clashed with police in protest of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan chanting things like “Islam will dominate.” An obvious threat to Christian Britain Maloney does not sound like your typical politician and his role may be to give the impression that UKIP is like ‘the ordinary British citizen.’ The leader of UKIP at the time, Malcolm Pearson’s message constantly ‘flags’ the nation. Attacking the EU, he says “it’s time to regain ‘our’ essential freedoms. Britain needs to be free to invest ‘our’ taxpayer’s money…and to negotiate ‘our’ own trade agreement. ‘We’ only have 9% of the EU votes, which control ‘our’ lives. ‘Our’ membership of the EU costs ‘us’ at least £45 million every day. UKIP will give power back to ‘the’ people.”126 The video continues with the future leader of the party, , answering voters’ grievances. Farage begins “’We’ gave away control of ‘our’ borders…now 5000 extra people a week come to settle in ‘this’ country.”127 He continues with UKIP’s new message to attract voters and finishes with “Patriotism is not a dirty word, we want to put Britain and British people first. By voting for us you send a message to ‘our’ political establishment that you’re not happy with them. UKIP in Westminster will stand up and fight for you. Vote for the United Kingdom. Vote UKIP.”128

In 1945 George Orwell, the English novelist, wrote about the dangers of nationalism in his essay ‘Notes on Nationalism’ and stated “Moreover, although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world.”129 Timothy Snyder, the American author and historian, comments on the use of the word ‘patriot’ as opposed to the use of the word ‘nationalist’, when right-wing politicians speak about their actions. Patriotism is “defensive”, being based on a love of one’s country, whereas nationalism “takes on a quality of aggression that makes it one of the prime causes of wars.”130 Fascists will protest they are defenders, not attackers. Hitler claimed he was defending Germany against the Jews. Today’s fascist claims they are protecting the homeland from invasion, conspiracy and racial pollution.131 In 2010, , the leader of The French (FN), a French right-wing party, described

126 ‘UKIP General Election Broadcast 2010,’ YouTube, uploaded 30th April 2010 127 ‘UKIP General Election Broadcast 2010,’ YouTube, uploaded 30th April 2010 128 ‘UKIP General Election Broadcast 2010,’ YouTube, uploaded 30th April 2010 129 George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, (Penguin, 2018) 130 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.56. 131 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.57. her party as a “patriotic” party that has more in common with UKIP than the BNP.132 Both UKIP and FN wanted to distance themselves from the BNP as most voters associated the BNP with Nazis. Hitler did claim his actions were defensive, most British people know Britain fought the Nazis in the Second World War. There is no way ‘we’ would end up like ‘them’.

Michael Billig claimed the problem lay in how to distinguish in practice the two allegedly very different states of mind. One cannot merely ask potential patriots whether they either love their country or hate foreigners.133 Perceptions of these two words are very different, nationalism having negative connotations (with links to Hitler and the Second World War), patriotism more positive. People’s perceptions are what makes these two words different. Patriotism is common rhetoric for populist demagogues like Nigel Farage and can be seen regularly in his speeches. In an interview shortly before the 2014 European elections he claimed UKIP was the “unashamedly .”134 Since the referendum result UKIP support has diminished; Farage and Arron Banks, UKIP’s biggest donor, felt they would become more relevant if they were to form a new party, The Patriotic Alliance.135

Nigel Farage was with UKIP from the party’s inception, he had in fact been the only UKIP MP to keep his deposit in the 1997 general election. A £500 deposit is needed to enter a candidate in British elections and that is returned if the candidate wins more than 5% of the vote, Farage managed to win 5.7% in Salisbury.136 Farage was (and still is) a prominent member of UKIP. He was party leader from 2006 until 2009 and again from 2010 until 2016. Malcom Pearson taking over for that short hiatus, while Farage attempted to challenge Speaker, John Bercow in the 2010 general election. He was the leader of the party when the party won the largest share of the vote in the European election of 2014 and when the Leave campaign won in the 2016 referendum.137 Nigel Farage has become synonymous with UKIP and many believe him to be the most influential figure behind Britain voting to leave the EU. Nigel Farage has always used banal nationalism to win support for his party. It can

132 Anonymous, ‘David Cameron must face the challenger of Islamisation,’ The Telegraph, 28th December 2010 133 Billig: Banal Nationalism, p.57. 134 Christopher Hope, ‘Nigel Farage: ‘Ukip is the patriotic party’,’ The Telegraph, 27th February 2014 135 Christopher Hope, ‘Ukip considered rebranding itself as the ‘Patriotic Alliance’ during election,’ The Telegraph, 15th August 2017 136 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.30. 137 Anonymous, ‘The Nigel Farage story,’ BBC, 4th July 2016 be seen, as mentioned, in the 2010 party election broadcast and only becomes more rampant (and less banal) as the party’s support grows. On the day of the 2010 general election he was involved in a stunt that ended up going very wrong and was considered a bad omen for the party.138 Farage and a pilot were planning on flying a plane with a banner carrying the slogan “Vote for your country – Vote UKIP” but shortly after it took off at 8am the banner got wrapped in the tail fin of the aircraft and it nosedived into the field.139 This may not have gone as planned but the message was very clear. It suggests voting UKIP is in the country’s best interests and nowhere does it mention what country. Banal nationalism means everyone who sees (or would have seen) that banner would know ‘your’ country is Britain.

2.3 Anywhere or Somewhere?

David Goodhart studied British society and found the old distinctions of class and economic interest have not disappeared, but we are increasingly over-laid by a larger and looser one, between the people who see the world from Anywhere and the people who see the world from Somewhere.140 Goodhart identifies Populism as an understandable reaction to liberal overreach and with his focus on Britain identifies a new divide in Western societies, pitting a dominant minority of people from “Anywheres” against a majority from “Somewheres”.141 One core group of Somewheres have been called the ‘left behind’ – mainly older white working-class men with little education. As noted earlier, the left behind were more likely to support UKIP. Goodhart identifies a loose Anywhere ideology, he calls ‘progressive individualism. This is a worldview that places a high value on autonomy, mobility and novelty and a much lower value on group identity, tradition and national social contracts. They are more comfortable with immigration and spread of human rights legislation. They are not necessarily anti-national but more likely see themselves as citizens of the world. In

138 Ford and Goodwin: Revolt on the Right, p.87. 139 Richard Edwards, ‘General Election 2010: Ukip’s Nigel Farage has lucky escape after election stunt plane crash,’ The Telegraph, 7th May 2010 140 Mair, John, Roe Clarke, Neil Fowler, Raymond Snoddy and Richard Tait, Brexit, Trump and the media, (London: Abramis 2017), p.71. 141 Anonymous, ‘The new political divide, and a plan to close it,’ The Economist, 25th May 2017 contrast, the Somewheres ideology is more socially conservative and communitarian by instinct.142 Goodhart also notices that they are moderately nationalistic and if English more likely to identify as such. This was further illustrated in the poll from the BBC that found the factors that influenced Leave voters, 74% of voters who saw themselves as English rather than British were more likely to vote Leave.143 Goodhart does recognise most Somewheres are not bigots and xenophobes but a study after the referendum did find fear of immigrants and foreigners was associated with support for Brexit. It would be wrong to claim everyone that voted Leave was a bigot and deny the multifaceted nature of Brexit but Dr Hannah Jones (a sociologist at the University of Warwick) said she was “not surprised by this finding, as the perceived threat of immigrants is something that has been forced by successive governments.”144 The Anywhere/Somewhere categorisation attempts to understand what is going on in contemporary politics. The Anywheres have counted for too much in the past generation – their sense of political entitlement revealed after Brexit and the populism has arisen as a counter balance to their dominance. The Anywhere’s overreach is the cause of the rise on populism.145

Goodhart’s system of labelling people either Anywheres and Somewheres, or Inbetweeners (if one does not fit into the first two categories) is too simplistic when looking at the Brexit result, or British society in general. Goodhart does recognise Somewheres are not mostly bigots and xenophobes but I believe citizens of a nation cannot be put into three categories like this, neither can the Leave or Remain supporters. Goodhart recognises one core group of Somewheres as the ‘left-behind’ but his definition of Somewheres is best suited to a definition for the ‘left-behind’, not a group found within the Somewheres. When Ford and Goodwin were studying UKIP, they found a group with similarities and they came to be known as the ‘left behind,’ but Goodhart tries to fit society into two labels and if they don’t fit in there then they are “inbetweeners”: ignoring the hugely diverse identities found within British society.

142 Mair et al, Brexit: Trump and the media, p.73. 143 Anonymous, ‘Brexit vote: The breakdown,’ BBC, 7th December 2016 144 Josh Gabbatiss, ‘Brexit strongly linked to , scientists conclude,’ The Independent, 27th November 2017 145 Mair et al, Brexit: Trump and the media, p.73. One of the chapters also offers a rather reactionary response, suggesting a throwback to a more traditional division of labour and restriction of permanent immigration in favour of guest-worker schemes.146 Goodhart’s book has merits: inequality has worsened, and the winners have not done enough to prevent this but Goodhart does not offer a reasonable answer and his labelling could be considered lazy. Somewheres would be a better alias for the ‘left behinds’ and although he blames liberal overreach and Populism he recommends an alternative: “decent populism” and insists national attachments should take priority. Why would an alternative populism and reinforcement of national and foreign be the answer? This would only deepen tensions concerning immigration.

146 Anonymous, ‘The new political divide, and a plan to close it,’ The Economist, 25th May 2017 3. Brexit was not always right.

UKIP played only a small part in Britain’s decision to leave the EU, but it cannot be denied that they had a huge impact on David Cameron’s initial decision to call the referendum and the strong hostility to the European Union before and during the campaign. When looking at party identification and the proportion of people voting leave it is evident anti-EU sentiments were visible across all political parties. Unsurprisingly 98% of UKIP members voted to leave but combined research from BSA, NCSR and a British Election Study Panel found 58% of Conservatives, 36% of Labour, 26% Liberal Democrats, 21% of Green and 79% with no affiliation voted to leave on 23rd June 2016.147 UKIP was influential, but Brexit would not have happened with its support alone. The report also found that voters were more likely to follow the position of the newspaper they read than the party they identified with. I will expatiate on the Conservatives and the media later but as Labour’s official position was in support for Remain it is fascinating how ubiquitous banal nationalism was. It was not just the Right utilising banal nationalism for their cause, it was evident before and during the campaign on both sides and across all party lines. There was a Twitter account set up, “Liberal Democrats for Leave”148 but as their most recent tweet was in 2015 support from Liberal Democrats appears insignificant. Perhaps because there was no support from the party as all 8 Liberal Democrat MPs sided with Remain.149

Labour, on the other hand are one of the main parties of British politics and a few of their MPs set up Labour Leave. This was the vocal voice for the Left’s support to leave the European Union. Labour Leave was set up by Brendan Chilton and as an independent entity in the run-up to the EU referendum. Within two months they had 140,000 supporters and had raised nearly half a million pounds.150 In the survey cited earlier, 90% of those questioned believed sovereignty to be the biggest issue voted to Leave, 88% believed immigration was the biggest issue.151 This statistic demonstrates why

147 Anonymous, ‘Brexit vote: The breakdown,’ BBC, 7th December 2016 148 ‘Liberal Democrats for Leave,’ Twitter, created August 2015 149 Clarke, Harold, Matthew Goodwin, Paul Whitley, Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017), p.30. 150 Julia Rampen, ‘The inside story of Labour Leave: the left-wing Eurosceptics who toppled a Tory prime minister,’ The NewStatesman, 3rd May 2017 151 Anonymous, ‘Brexit vote: The breakdown,’ BBC, 7th December 2016 banal nationalism was such an important and effective tool in the arguments for Leave. Banal nationalism allows nations to be reproduced and entail national aspirations, such as the ‘right’ to sovereignty.

Looking at a general picture of Labour’s relationship with Europe, the party tended to be anti-EU after Britain joined in 1975 but that changed in 1988 when Jacques Delors (the president of the European Commission at the time) made a keynote speech at the Congress and outlined plans for a more ‘social Europe.’152 That same year Delors told the European Parliament that in a decade’s time 80% of economic, social and possibly even tax legislation would be made at European level.153 This implied that the House of Commons would fade into irrelevance and consequently give more rights for trade unions. This did not go down well with the Conservative party and as a result the European Union gained the Labour party’s support but lost the Conservative’s. Delor’s vision for 80% of British laws being decided in Europe did not come to fruition and the former Labour MP, Denis Macshane searched the House of Commons library and found in 2015 that fewer than 7% of primary legislation originated from Europe.154 However, that does not resonate with many British citizens and so many still believe this myth to be true, or even that there is an inevitable threat to British sovereignty. Labour Leave portrayed a more objective argument for Leave. When one looks at UKIP or other far right supporter for Leave most (if not all) of their ‘grievances’ are simply not true or greatly exaggerated. The European Union is not perfect and does have its faults and Labour Leave used this to back up their case for Leave and give it some plausibility, with the support from banal nationalism, of course.

Labour MP, Kate Hoey (ex-co-chair for Labour Leave) wrote an article in October 2015 explaining why leaving the EU is a left-wing move. She does make a good case for Leave, unlike the vitriol one would expect from UKIP MPs that typically concoct fictitious (or highly exaggerated) grievances based on fear and loss of sovereignty. Hoey leads the case with the situation with Greece that illustrates how the EU’s measures exposed it not as the benign political institution guaranteeing social protection and international solidarity, but an unaccountable force bringing crippling pain on people who cannot hope to repay the loans

152 Shipman: All Out War, p.73. 153 Macshane: Brexit, p69-70 154 Macshane: Brexit, p.107. that are recapitalising their banks.155 Hoey claims that Labour looked to Europe to block Thatcher’s policies and the EU is no longer motivated by Jacques Delors’ ‘Social Europe’ but is increasingly out of touch with the needs of ‘its’ people…’We’ stayed out of Europe and have therefore been spared much of the chaos of that unsustainable currency but ‘we’ still give £7.3 billion net a year of ‘our’ money to the EU.156 She continues with the EU’s threat to British firms, public services and how she does not “trust the EU to negotiate on ‘our’ behalf…’We’ need to take back control from the unelected and unaccountable European Commission if ‘we’ are to have a chance.”157 This is an extremely effective flagging of the nation and the memorable ‘take back control’ would become synonymous with the Leave campaign. The picture associated with the article portrays a British flag and the flag of the EU, obviously the British flag is at the forefront to accentuate ‘our’ greater prestige. Hoey exposes legitimate failings of the EU and her message is very effective because of her clever use of banal nationalism. Nationalism is associated with the right, but banal nationalism is an effective tool across the political spectrum.

Another strong voice from the left was Gisela Stuart. Paul Stephenson (Vote Leave’s communications chief) believed Stuart “bought stability where we only had chaos on the Labour side. She helped temper some of the stuff so that it would play better with Labour voters.”158 Stuart, like many MPs waited for David Cameron to attempt a new deal with the EU in the infamous weekend of February 2016. That weekend would not only see Stuart stand on the side for Leave but saw other big names like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove affirm their loyalty to Vote Leave. That weekend was supposed to set a final seal on everything Cameron had set in motion with his Bloomburg speech three years earlier.159 On Friday 19th February David Cameron stepped out to announce he had successfully concluded his renegotiation with the European Union and Matthew Elliot (former Chief Executive of Vote Leave) believed it was that weekend that made it possible for “us to win.”160 Cameron

155 Kate Hoey, ‘Labour MP Kate Hoey: Why leaving the EU is a left-wing move,’ The Independent, 9th October 2015 156 Kate Hoey, ‘Labour MP Kate Hoey: Why leaving the EU is a left-wing move,’ The Independent, 9th October 2015 157 Kate Hoey, ‘Labour MP Kate Hoey: Why leaving the EU is a left-wing move,’ The Independent, 9th October 2015 158 Shipman: All Out War, p.197. 159 Shipman: All Out War, p.116. 160 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.19. announced the result of his deal on Friday night and the next day Cabinet Ministers , Michael Gove, Chris Grayling, , Theresa Villiers and announced they would be campaigning for Leave. The next day Boris Johnson would add to what was to be known as the ‘Glorious six’ Conservative party members backing Leave.161 Cameron’s deal was such a disaster because the bar was raised too high, he could not possibly achieve what he had promised in the Bloomburg speech in 2013. Polls showed voters were equally divided between Remain and Leave but when asked about ‘being in a reformed Europe’ there was a large majority in favour.162 The problem was how subjective the definition of ‘reformed Europe’ was for Cameron and the British public. In the end Cameron ditched many of the ideas he himself had floated in the preceding three years.163 The coverage in the British national press was unforgiving and a poll by ComRes found only 21% of voters thought the deal was a good one.164

Left wing national pride was far subtler and therefore more banal than their right-wing counterparts. The percentage of Labour voters to vote Leave may have been a minority but the arguments demonstrate how powerful banal nationalism is when either Left or Right want to galvanise the public into action. It would seem, after Cameron’s weekend of negotiations with the EU in February, that the referendum would be a ‘blue on blue’ battle, seven Conservative MPs consolidated their support for Leave, despite the Conservative’s ‘official position’ being neutral and against their Prime Minister who was supporting Remain. This, along with their dominant position in the media, had led to Brexit being portrayed as a very Conservative problem and very little attention is paid to the left-wing arguments.

Gisela Stuart was quick to make her case in Prospect magazine on 1st March 2016 to claim ‘Brexit is a left-wing choice’ because, even today, it is seen predominantly as a right-wing dispute. It could even be argued that Cameron called the referendum to manage divisions within his party but primarily focusing on this ignores the millions of left-wing Leave supporters and the potent effect banal nationalism also had on these voters. In Stuart’s

161 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.19. 162 Shipman: All Out War, p.118. 163 Shipman: All Out War, p.126. 164 Shipman: All Out War, p.130. article in Prospect she is quick to question Cameron’s allegiance to Remain, “was his initial display of EU scepticism insincere?”165 Cameron was often very critical of the EU, so much so, Ulrich Beck once described him as a “vehement Eurosceptic”166 but this was probably to discredit Cameron. Stuart makes the left-wing case ‘stirring up’ Labour voters leading with “I am puzzled that the Labour Party seems to have mislaid its radical roots” and it was the Labour party, not the EU, that gave Britain most of its workers’ rights. She continues to list numerous rights Labour has given to the British workers and at the same time portrays the EU as outdated, institutionally incapable of change and potentially a danger to ‘us.’ I think that her nationalism is also quite strong albeit not chauvinistic. Although Stuart’s ‘flagging’ of the nation is so subtle it is still present and further substantiates my claim that banal nationalism was ubiquitous in support for Brexit.

What is unique about the left-wing support for Brexit is their utilisation of banal nationalism. Stuart, Hoey and the other Labour MPs will use the deixis of the nation and other ways of ‘flagging’ but their nationalism has a foundation in socialist ideology and their defence is for their party against the neoliberal stance of the EU, not the immigrants or other scapegoats. Banal nationalism is evident, but their arguments always come back to what Labour has given the country in contrast to the EU. Labour gave Britain minimum wage and increased parental leave, not the EU. Labour fought against other European countries to give British workers these rights. This support for Labour’s socialist ideology was also evident during the campaign and reiterated throughout.

It is a legitimate claim that Leaving the EU was considered a right-wing desire, although left- wing support (like Hoey) was evident before the campaign began, it was not at all close to being as outspoken as the right-wing support. When MPs chose Leave or Remain in February 2016, only 10 of the 232 Labour MPs campaigned for Leave.167 Gisela Stuart, one of those 10 MPs and a very vocal left-wing voice for Leave felt she had to ‘team up’ with Conservative MPs, Boris Johnson and to ‘make her case’ for Leave. Although I have argued that banal nationalism played a part in left-wing arguments, as well

165 Gisela Stuart, ‘Brexit is the left-wing choice,’ Prospect, 1st March 2016 166 Macshane: Brexit, p.21. 167 Clarke et al, Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.30. as right-wing, I also want to demonstrate their use of hot nationalism, which was not difficult after using banal nationalism for many years preceding Brexit.

It must also be mentioned that banal nationalism is not unique to Britain, but is found in most nations, if not all of them. Maybe it can be argued that it is more prevalent in Britain compared to other European countries, but it was the combination of Euroscepticism with banal nationalism that made Brexit successful. Most countries do not see the EU as a threat to their nation and would not consider leaving. Eurobarometers ask its members a number of questions every year, one of which being ‘Please tell me to what extent you agree or disagree with each of the following statements – (Our country) could better face the future outside the EU.’ The Netherlands consistently top the list with the highest percentage in total disagreement. In 2014 76% totally disagreed and only 19% totally agreed.168 The following year 77% totally disagreed and only 16% totally agreed.169 Unsurprisingly, for both years the UK were at the bottom of this list. This shows that banal or hot nationalism does not necessarily lead to Euroscepticism.

In ensuing chapters I will elaborate further on this but now I want to demonstrate ways in which Stuart and other Labour MPs ‘flagged’ the nation, in anything but a banal way. I also want to recognise how Labour support for Brexit is quick to point out the benefit of the Labour party, and what the party has given the nation over the years. This was common amongst Labour support for Brexit but the aspect visible in all arguments was the flagging of the nation, either in banal or hot ways. It was the end of February when MPs chose either Remain or Leave but the ‘patriotism’ was distinctly visible when the campaign was in its penultimate month, and even more so in its final month. The main focus on the campaign will be in the final chapter but as most Labour MPs only declared their support for Leave once the campaign had begun, therefore most of the left-wing campaign will be examined in this chapter.

168 TNS opinion and social, ‘Standard 81: Public opinion in the European Union,’ European Commission, June 2014, p.108. 169 TNS opinion and social, ‘Standard Eurobarometer 83: Public opinion in the European Union,’ European Commission, May 2015, p.99 3.1 Labour’s battle begins

Stuart had already made her support for Leave known by the end of February and made sure she was a speaker at Vote Leave events. Stuart backed the argument for Leave that claimed we could reassign the £350 million a week sent to the EU to the NHS. Gisela Stuart was one of the authors of a letter urging Britons to vote Leave for the sake of the NHS. The deixis is evident with Stuart, “The NHS is struggling with rising demand. ‘The’ Government has simply not given ‘it’ the funding that it needs. Instead of handing over £350 million a week to Brussels ‘we’ should spend ‘our’ money on ‘our’ priorities like the NHS. If ‘we’ Vote Leave ‘we’ will be able to stop ‘our’ money being spent on EU Bureaucrats and instead invest in the NHS so that patients can get the best possible care.”170 This letter was reported in anti-EU paper, The Express, and continues with the threat of the EU-US trade agreement, also known as, Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which was another strong left-wing argument against remaining in the EU. Stuart’s most ‘patriotic’ speech was surely the day before the vote in the BBC debate, on 22nd June 2016. That is how The Express understood it when reporting on it. The subheading, ‘A LABOUR MP who herself came to Britain as an immigrant opened the BBC’s ‘Great Debate’ with a ‘patriotic’ speech urging Britons to take back control from the EU.’171 The main message was ‘taking back control;’ the message synonymous with Leave. She describes the EU a noble dream that has turned into a nightmare, “it doesn’t have to be like this, ‘we’ can take back control over ‘our’ laws, ‘we’ can take back control over ‘our’ taxes, ‘we’ can take back control over ‘our’ borders, immigration policy and security…you will decide who makes decisions about the future of ‘this’ country so, take back control, and Vote Leave.”172 Employing the ‘deixis’ but extremely ‘hot’ nationalism, or is it patriotism?

A month before the referendum vote Martin Durkin uploaded “Brexit: The movie” onto YouTube and Vimeo advocating for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.173 A

170 Greg Heffer, ‘Doctors, nurses and paramedics urge voters to back Brexit in order to ‘save the NHS’,’ The Express, 12th April 2016 171 Oli Smith, ‘’EU was a noble dream turned into a nightmare’ Labour MP’s stirring Leave speech,’ The Express, 22nd June 2016 172 Oli Smith, ‘’EU was a noble dream turned into a nightmare’ Labour MP’s stirring Leave speech,’ The Express, 22nd June 2016 173 ‘Brexit: The Movie,’ IMDB, 11 May 2016 little over a month later and just over a week before the referendum Labour Leave uploaded “Lexit the movie,” the left-wing case for leaving.174 This is a far more objective and points out real flaws in the European Union from the left wing, more socialist point of view. It begins by pointing out the main backers of Remain are 3 banking giants with their own interests in mind and the “Bullingdon twins, George Osbourne and David Cameron, the 2 men who spent six years attacking the disabled, privatising the NHS, slashing welfare, attacking union rights and handing tax cuts to millionaires.”175 The ‘movie attempts to debunk myths about the EU, starting with the myth, “Labour is pro-EU”. This is a historical look at Labour’s relationship with the EU (as it originally opposed it when Britain initially joined) and the first speaker is Labour MP Kate Hoey. The first thing the viewer notices is the British flag strategically placed behind Hoey as she is being interviewed. A blatant celebration of the nation. A firefighter, Paul Embry is also interviewed and the leader of , . Each one of them put forward a case for leaving the EU and how it is the best option for Britain. It is the patriotic option. The next myth, The EU is left-wing, looks at TTIP and how it is a threat to ‘the’ NHS, Galloway describing it as “the great white shark in the water.” Then they mention the Greek case and how the EU crushed ‘its’ people, ‘its’ government, ‘its’ public sector, ‘its’ referendum result was all crushed by the EU.176 The situation is so bad because an outside institution is controlling Greece, the people have no power and as mentioned earlier, it is seen as natural to want sovereignty and a threat to that is a threat to the people. The viewer will sympathise because they will understand Greek national aspirations that are being destroyed by the European Union.

The video continues with the threat to privatise rail services across Europe, taking power away from the national government. Then it moved onto how the EU is actually neo-liberal and enforce their ‘Austerity wars’ where Galloway explains how the EU not only outlawed socialism but also Keynesianism, something he claimed to be “the very thing that saved ‘us’ from utter destruction of the depression of the 1930s.”177 The argument moves onto the potential trading future between Britain and the EU and Hoey claims “they need ‘us’ more

174 ‘Lexit the Movie,’ YouTube, uploaded 15th June 2016 175 ‘Lexit the Movie,’ YouTube, uploaded 15th June 2016 176 ‘Lexit the Movie,’ YouTube, uploaded 15th June 2016 177 ‘Lexit the Movie,’ YouTube, uploaded 15th June 2016 than ‘we’ need them”178 before it moves onto the Common policy. There is a lot of animosity from British fishermen and this is evident in the video as they dominate this part of the ‘movie.’ They explain how it is “equal access to a common resource” that has seen 70% of the EU quota of fish caught in ‘our’ waters of which only 14% is caught by UK fishermen. One fisherman claims this has diminished the UK fleet by 64% since its introduction. “We’re still fighting ‘our’ cause and ‘we’ still produce good fish but it’s a shadow of its former self.” This part of the video is very clever because this is a real threat to British fishermen and women and it is told by ‘patriotic’ British citizens that have suffered because of the EU. Everyone who was interviewed have real grievances and are subtlety praising the nation. They have seen the EU kill their industry, but they believe Britain will thrive once it has full control of its waters.

It is a common claim from Eurosceptic politicians to refer to the European Union as “unelected.” It was mentioned many times in Lexit and many times by the right-wing politicians. It is bizarre when a British politician complains about unelected officials in the EU when the is the largest unelected legislature in the world outside and North Korea, containing men who have bought their rights to be lawmakers.179 There are 751 members in the European Parliament, for a population of just over 500 million, but in Britain, with a population of only 65 million, there are 800 members in the House of Lords.180 Every government has bureaucrats, who are by nature unelected. The EU has about 33,000 civil servants, the British government has over 400,000. The 28 commissioners making up the European Commission are nominated by member countries (each gets one) and they are approved by the European Parliament, which is directly elected by voters. The president of the is then elected by those leaders.181 This is similar to the British voting for their MPs who then pick the Prime Minister. It is true there is a lack of direct accountability to voters but that is largely because it would require pooling politics in one European arena, and the politicians and citizens of the different European countries do

178 ‘Lexit the Movie,’ YouTube, uploaded 15th June 2016 179 Macshane: Brexit, p.152. 180 Macshane: Brexit, p.159. 181 Anonymous, ‘Does it make sense to refer to EU officials as “unelected bureaucrats”?,’ The Economist, 14th July 2017 not want to do that.182 As Anand Menon, an EU expert at King’s College in London points out how the system relies on “indirect elections via a that doesn’t exist…if anyone proposed a direct EU-wide election for the commission president, the Eurosceptics who denounce the “unelected” Mr Junker would surely reject it…valid case against the EU…its bureaucrats are too insulated from democracy, and its democracy is not functioning well enough without common demos to make it work.183 UKIP won the most seats in 2015 European Elections but figures show their MEPs attended the fewest European Parliament votes of any party in the EU’s 28 countries. UKIP representatives only participated in 62.3% of votes, the next least attentive party attended 78% of votes.184 Maybe it is the British MEPs that are the problem, rather than the “unelected” European Union.

182 Anonymous, ‘Does it make sense to refer to EU officials as “unelected bureaucrats”?,’ The Economist, 14th July 2017 183 Anonymous, ‘Does it make sense to refer to EU officials as “unelected bureaucrats”?,’ The Economist, 14th July 2017 184 Jon Stone, ‘Ukip MEPs attend the fewest European Parliament vote of any party in the EU’s 28 countries,’ The Independent, 12th June 2015 4. BeLeave the media.

Although I have argued that Euroscepticism is, in a way, part of British culture, we need to recognise the volatility of British Euroscepticism. In 2004 ECMS began to survey public attitudes in the UK about EU membership, every month, until April 2016. Each time they asked, ‘Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove, or strongly disapprove of Britain’s membership in the European Union?’ Over the twelve-year period, on average 44.7% of those who responded approved of membership and 42.9% disapproved.185 However, Figure 4.1 (below) will reveal how volatile attitudes really were. For example, approval was very high in 2005 but had dropped significantly in 2011, rising back to similar levels of 2005 up until 2015 when it dropped very rapidly towards the referendum.

In the 40 years of British membership there have been many studies attempting to identify what shaped British attitudes to membership and these explored a range of factors, including the impact of media coverage (Vliegenthart et al. 2008). In this study they begin with a statement that is still true today, ‘Citizens, when forming their opinion about political issues depend on information from the mass media.’186 This was and still is relevent for Briton’s aquiring knowledge about issues that citizens do not have direct access to, like the European Union. Historically, older people are more likely to vote and to read the newspaper. The National Readership Survey confirms more over 65s read print papers than any other age group.187 A post-Brexit study found that 90% of over 65s voted188 so it is more likely that if they turn up to vote in greater numbers and with most of their knowledge of the EU from the media then this will have a profound effect on how they vote. I will elaborate more on this in the next chapter. I have also determined that older people are more likely to have a more assertive sense of nationalism so if the media portrays the EU as a threat to ‘us’ then that message will be more effective on this larger readership.

185 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.65. 186 Vliegenthart, Rens, Andreas R. T. Schuck, Hajo G. Boomgaarden and Claes H. De Vreese, “News Coverage and support for European Integration, 1990-2006), (2008), International Journal of Public Opinion Research Vol. 20 No 4. P.415. 187 ‘Readership,’ NRS, October 2016-November 2017 188 Toby Helm, ‘EU referendum: youth turnout almost twice as high as first thought,’ The Guardian, 10th July 2016

The Great Fear of 1789 was consummated by a massive insurrection of peasants and townspeople spurred by rumours of events at Versailles and Paris that led to the French Revolution.189 These lies led to a French Republic and a dictatorship under Napoleon. Today, it is so much easier to deceive the public and the Leave campaign is infamous for its half- truths, myths and outright lies. The most notable during the campaign being the big red bus claiming “we send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead”(Picture in chapter 5.2) On 8th March 2018, Soroush Vosoughi and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied over 4.5 million Tweets from 2006 – 2017 about 126,000 different stories found false information was not only retweeted more than truth but also faster.190 They found true stories took, on average, six times longer than falsehoods to reach at least 1,500 people. Only 0.1% of true stories were shared by more than 1,000 people, but 1% of false stories managed between 1,000 and 100,000 shares.191 Evidentially this is only getting worse, but it may be the reason why Snopes was created in 1994 so internet users could debunk or confirm widely spread internet stories.192 In 1992 the European

189 Richard Andrews, The Great Fear of 1789: A rural panic in revolutionary France, (New York Times, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: with Index, 1973) 190 Anonymous, ‘On Twitter, falsehood spreads faster than truth,’ The Economist, 10th March 2018 191 Anonymous, ‘On Twitter, falsehood spreads faster than truth,’ The Economist, 10th March 2018 192 https://www.snopes.com/ Commission also set up a website to refute myths, this only concentrated on lies told by the British press about the European Union. In June 2016 the Economist studied this list of over 400 myths and unsurprisingly found The Daily Mail spread more EU-linked lies than anyone else. The study also found that it is not just the right-wing press that are guilty, the Telegraph and BBC are also culpable.193 As the MIT study found falsehoods were more likely to be heard than truths, on this occasion it is even more likely for these falsehoods to be spread as the average rebuttal is read about 1,000 times. The Daily Mail’s website, by contrast, garners 225 million visitors each month.194

Chart: Lies, damned and directives.

193 Anonymous, ‘Debunking years of tabloid claims about Europe,’ The Economist, 22nd June 2016 194 Anonymous, ‘Debunking years of tabloid claims about Europe,’ The Economist, 22nd June 2016 4.1 The media create their image of the EU

If the media is shaping the British public’s attitude on the EU, then it is not surprising there is a Eurosceptic presence in Britain, that at times can be very hostile. The EU Commission set up a webpage to refute myths told in the British press, but even with that list, very few British people know the truth, resulting in a false idea of the EU. There is a plethora of examples to choose from, but I will use a few to illustrate how the media misinforms the public regarding the EU. The EU set up ‘Your First EURES Job’ and in August 2014 the British press reported on it. This scheme supports 18-35s from the EU to find a job in any EU country, as well as and . If the job-seeker is invited to an interview the scheme support is provided to help them relocate and it is only available to EU citizens, not migrants or asylum seekers.195 When The Daily Telegraph informed the public their article read ‘EU pay jobless migrants to come to Britain’196 and the next day The Daily Express’s headline ‘Now the European Union pays jobless migrants THOUSANDS to claim jobs in Britain.’197 The scheme did result in more EU citizens finding jobs in Britain but the way it is reported in the press it is implied they are given thousands of to relocate to Britain and hope to find a job while they are there. Neglecting to report that British employers have invited them, presumably because they could not find a jobseeker in the UK. This was more than likely to strengthen the anti-immigrant narrative and common grievance that immigrants are taking British jobs from British workers.

Another common grievance of the British public and the EU are the EU contributions. In November 2014 the EU Commission updated a page regarding the UK’s contributions to the EU. The page began “Once again we are seeing big bold headlines claiming massive increase in the UK’s contribution to the EU budget in 2013.”198 Evidently this is a regular complaint in the British press. The previous month, the headline on BBC read ‘UK told to pay £1.7bn extra

195 ’Press reports on first EURES Job mobility scheme conflate support for young unemployed Europeans with the Calais situation and do not reflect reality,’ European Commission blog, 7th August 2015 196 Matthew Holehouse, Tom Whitehead and Henry Samuel, ‘EU pays jobless migrants to come to Britain,’ The Telegraph, 3rd august 2015 197 Tom Parfitt, ‘Now the European Union pays jobless migrants THOUSANDS to claim jobs in Britain,’ The Express, 4th August 2015 198 ‘The EU budget and UK contributions – the facts, 2013,’ European Commission blog, 3rd November 2014 to European Union budget’199 and David Cameron spoke in Brussels insisting “If people think I am paying that bill on 1 December, they have another think coming.”200 This was also reported in The Guardian and The Telegraph reported it as ‘EU threatens to fine Britain unless it pays £1.7 billion bill’201 followed by another article a few days later, ‘EU threatens to fine Britain £2 million a week.’202 Each report on the increase in ‘our’ bill and is framed as a punishment for ‘our’ economy doing better than expected. The story is also framed as “the EU bill,” their property and as not ours, to further support the media’s claim that the EU are being audacious to ask for more of ‘our’ money. The stories do mention it is because Britain did better than expected but very little space is given to explain why. The media want to create anti-EU sentiment among the British public. There is a simple reason behind this; the UK is meant to pay 1% of its GDP in EU contributions (not including any rebate or funding) and as the UK’s economy was doing better than previously thought they needed to contribute more. The same way a self-employed Briton would need to pay more in taxes if the made more in 2014 than they did in 2013.

This hostility to the EU would be accentuated a few months later when the EU put plans forward to “make corporate taxation fairer, more growth friendly and transparent and to address tax abuse, ensure sustainable revenues and foster a better business environment in the internal market.”203 The Telegraph’s headline read ‘Fury at French and German plot to TAX Britain: Grubby EU tax rate threatens UK job’204 Not only are the EU sending jobless migrants to Britain, now they want to increase ‘our’ taxes. The wording is very telling. It’s labelled a ‘plot’ as if it’s illegal or intentionally harmful and another claim that it is aiming to harm Britain alone, neglecting to reveal the fact that it is an EU wide initiative. In addition to all of that, it ostensibly states that it threatens UK jobs. This is a very similar scenario to the snap election in 2017 when papers smeared Corbyn on his tax increases. The Sun published

199 Anonymous, ‘UK told to pay £1.7bn extra to European Union budget,’ BBC, 24th October 2014 200 Anonymous, ‘Cameron: UK won’t pay £1.7bn EU bill,’ BBC, 24th October 2014 201 Steve Swinford, ‘EU threatens to fine Britain unless it pays £1.7billion bill,’ The Telegraph, 27th October 2014 202 Bruno Waterfield, ‘EU threatens to fine Britain £2 million a week,’ The Telegraph, 3rd November 2014 203 ‘Commission prepares an Action Plan for fairer and more growth-friendly tax systems in Europe,’ European Commission press release, 27th May 2015 204 Macer Hall and Martyn Brown, ‘Fury at French and German plan to TAX Britain: Grubby EU tax rate threatens UK jobs,’ The Express, 27th May 2015 an article claiming ‘ ‘plans to raise corporation tax by 8 percent for EVERY business in Britain’205 This was also deceitful because Corbyn was only proposing to raise taxes back to the rate they had been in 2011; in 2010 the main rate was 28% and by 2017 the Conservative party had reduced it to 19%. In that same period the small business rates had dropped by 1%. Corbyn only planned to raise the rate for big business by 7%, a rate 2% lower to what it was 7 years before. These details were neglected, and this EU initiative was obviously framed as an attack on all Britons to provoke as much outrage as possible and as the media is where a lot of Britons get their education on the EU, a lot of people will believe this fallacy. It is not surprising The Sun and The Daily Mail were so adamant that Britain leave the EU if it wants to tackle tax avoidance, both papers are owned by known billionaire tax avoiders. The Panama papers were published in 2015 and exposed a lot of wealthy individuals’ tax evasion. In November 2017 The Guardian reported on another set of leaked documents, the ‘Paradise papers.’ This article highlighted the fact that many of the most vocal supporters of Brexit appeared in these papers and it is believed by many that Brexit was called because of this EU crackdown on tax evasion.206

The national press was also responsible for the shocking result in the Welsh referendum vote. profited in financial terms, more than any of the other countries in Britain. Official statistics show Wales received around £680 million in EU funding annually which meant the funding Wales received was greater than the amount contributed by Welsh taxpayers via the UK’s payments in the EU budget.207 It would not be strange to expect Wales to be a strong advocate for the European Union but in 2009 Wales saw its first UKIP MEP and in the 2014 European parliament elections UKIP came in second place behind Labour, pushing Conservatives to third place and the Welsh social-democratic party, , into fourth place.208 2014 was a dangerous year for Britain’s relationship with the European Union as that was the year UKIP secured first place with 24 seats and pushing the two main British parties to second and third place. Only 35.6% of the British public bothered

205 Steve Hawkes, ‘RED PERIL Jeremy Corbyn ‘plans to raise corporation tax by 8 per cent for EVERY business in Britain’,’ The Sun, 27 April 2017 206 Juliette Garside, Hilary Osborne and Ewen MacAskill, ‘The Brexiters who put their money offshore,’ The Guardian, 9th November 2017 207 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.172. 208 ‘Results of the 2014 European Parliament elections in the UK,’ European Parliament, accessed 14th June 2018 to turn up for the European elections209 but a far-right anti-EU party pushing the big players in British politics to second and third place was surely resonating with the public. The Welsh government published figures that showed since 2007 EU funded projects have helped support nearly 73,000 people into work and 234,000 people to gain qualifications. They have also helped create nearly 12,000 businesses and some 37,000 jobs.210 The problem was, the Welsh were forming opinions from English newspapers and too many knew very little about their own country. In 2014 an ICM BBC poll found only 48% of Welsh people knew the NHS was run by the Welsh government and 43% mistakenly thought Westminster was responsible.211 Two years later a YouGov poll for Cardiff University’s Wales centre showed a fictitious MEP was more recognisable than Plaid Cymru’s Jill Evans, Labour’s Derek Vaughan and Conservative’s Kay Swinburne. The only MEP more recognisable than this fictitious MEP was UKIP’s .212 Fewer than 10% of newspaper buyers buy indigenous papers and the biggest seller, The Daily Mail will not be reporting on the extensive benefits of Welsh membership to the EU.

Media Tenor’s analysis of BBC coverage over the 15 years preceding the referendum found negative stories about the EU – in which their institutions were portrayed as interfering, bureaucratic and undemocratic – outnumbered positive stories by more than four to one.213 The study also compared BBC coverage of the EU over the course of 2015 with its treatment of world leaders who were considered “strong men.” It found approximately 45% of EU coverage was negative, the same proportion given to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and even greater than the 7% China’s Xi Jinping received. Both men received more positive coverage than the EU in that same period.214 Very worrying results for a broadcaster that is meant to be impartial.

209 ‘Results by country,’ European Parliament results of the 2014 European elections, accessed 14th June 2018 210 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.172. 211 Lizzie Dearden, ‘Poll reveals ‘a lot of confusion’ in Wales over role of devolved Government, The Independent, 9th June 2014 212 Anonymous, ‘Brexit: More people recognise fictitious MEP than real ones,’ BBC, 17th November 2016 213 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media p.209. 214 Jasper Jackson, ‘BBC’s EU reporting ‘more negative than its Putin coverage’,’ The Guardian, 21st April 2016 Banal nationalism is visible in all countries, so nations can be reproduced, but British banal nationalism combined with decades of Euroscepticism made Leave arguments so successful. If citizens did not feel a connection with their country then very few, if any, would have bothered with Brexit and the calls to ‘do it for the nation’ would not have resonated like they did. If one was to look at the campaign and how it was ‘fought’ it could be interpreted as a war between the two sides. No one was marching into battle, but the British public were being mobilised in the name of the nation. British flags were flying, citizens were affirming their loyalty and both sides were claiming they were fighting for their homeland. This may not have been an actual war where soldiers were involved in armed conflict215 but Tim Shipman’s cleverly titled book ‘All Out War’ on the referendum campaign does illustrate and makes one realise the campaign was ‘fought’ like a war and the years of banal nationalism and Euroscepticism was what made the British citizens figuratively pick up their weapons and fight for their nation. 72% of the British electorate turned up to vote216 and war rhetoric was palpable from both sides. The day before the referendum Michael Gove declared “Britain is facing this generation’s ‘D-Day’ – with a choice between becoming a prosperous, sovereign nation once again, or a poorer, less secure one inside the EU.”217 State sponsored amnesia perpetuates the idea that Britain stands alone with plenty of narratives ignoring Britain’s imperial past, only highlighting events such as D-Day and Dunkirk. Therefore, Gove’s reminiscent WWII rhetoric resonates so compellingly with the British public and this was not isolated. The same day Boris Johnson urged The Sun readers, “holding history in their hands” to back Brexit and “let the Lion roar again”218 which involved Boris flying a helicopter in a former WWII airfield; furthermore, labelling it a battle for British democracy. Although I have mentioned aspects of the campaign already, in the next chapter, I will primarily focus on the four months leading up to the referendum to further elucidate just how effective banal nationalism was. This war would not have been ‘fought’ without utilising past and present banal nationalism and Euroscepticism.

215 Remain supporting Labour MP was murdered shortly before the referendum by a man with links to a neo-Nazi group. 216 ‘EU referendum results,’ The Electoral Commission, accessed 14th June 2018 217 James Slack, ‘Today is OUR D-Day, says Gove: He issues passionate plea not to let down future generations,’ The Daily Mail, 22nd June 2016 218 Steve Hawkes, Lynn Davidson and Harry Cole, ‘BOJO’S RALLYING CRY Boris Johnson urges Sun readers ‘with history in their hands’ to back Brexit,’ The Sun, 22nd June 2016 5. It will be alright on the night.

In the latter part of the second month of 2016 two competing camps in British politics went into battle.219 In the preceding chapters I have demonstrated the ubiquity of banal nationalism and Euroscepticism, not only in British newspapers and political speeches but as a part of British culture. In this chapter, I aim to focus on the effect it had on the four months in 2016 that led to Britain voting to Leave the European Union. This is one of these crises that is made possible by banal nationalism, and in this case, also Euroscepticism. As I argued earlier, banal nationalism reproduces nations and although many believe nationalism as a property of other “remote” nations, in a world of nations nationalism cannot be confined to the peripheries. This ‘crisis,’ the Brexit campaign, depends on an existing ideological foundation: banal nationalism. Therefore, the four months of the Brexit campaign were a mixture of banal nationalism and ‘hot’ nationalism, more of the latter as both sides needed to win this ‘battle.’ The Daily Mail front page on the 22nd June 2016 ‘If you believe in Britain Vote Leave’ and The Sun’s ‘Beleave in Britain’220 a week earlier can hardly be construed as banal. I have also mentioned this in the previous chapter on left- wing support for Brexit. I also want to use this chapter to look at the public perceptions of Brexit and the arguments of the Leave campaign. If this is considered, then one could discern the impact of both camp’s arguments. Although it will be impossible to know why every one of the 17,410,742 voted to leave,221 but by looking at the utilisation of banal nationalism in Leave’s arguments and public perceptions in the weeks running up to the referendum one can identify its impact.

Since 2000 BSA has asked the British public what they thought about the country’s long- term policy towards the EU should be and at the start of 2016, 43% of respondents felt Britain should remain but in a reformed EU and only 22% wanted to leave outright.222 The years of banal Euroscepticism had created opposition, but not enough hostility to want to

219 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.11. 220 Jack Sommers, ‘Daily Mail and Mirror finally reveal which side they’re backing in EU referendum,’ The Huffington Post, 22nd Jun 2016 221 ‘EU referendum results,’ The Electoral Commission, accessed 14th June 2018

222 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.20. leave; the EU was given a chance to reform. This reform was for Cameron to work out and Cameron failed. Very few people believed the negotiations worked out in Britain’s favour and the papers made sure to exacerbate the situation. That weekend saw the two camps prepare for ‘war,’ the British public would pick a side and the next four months would see the two camps fight for what they thought was right for ‘their’ nation. As the two camps prepared for battle on 20th February the Conservative MPs Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Michael Gove, John Whittingdale, Theresa Villiers and Priti Patel posed for the cameras, after declaring their support for Leave, in front of a banner that read ‘Let’s Take Back Control’ and the next day Boris Johnson declared he wanted “a better deal for the people of ‘his’ country, to save ‘them’ money and to ‘take control’.”223 The Leave camp were arranging their arsenals and their most important weapon, banal nationalism was transforming into ‘hot’ nationalism which they would utilise it as much as possible. One of their most potent courses of utilisation was through the media, and the media was not going to ‘play fair’.

5.1 Picking sides and spreading lies

Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Communication and Culture analysed EU referendum related weekday coverage between 6th May and 22nd June on the television and in the press. They examined news (7pm) Channel 5 News Tonight (6:30pm) BBC1 News at 10, ITV1 News at 10, Sky News 8-8:30pm, The Guardian, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, The Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, The Sun, Daily star and the I4. The total analysis covered 2,294 news reports articles and editorials.224 This analysis found the balance was evenly spread with Remain and Leave benefiting from five titles each. On the surface this looks balanced but collectively evaluative reporting of the campaign favoured Brexit by a margin of roughly 60:40, but when circulation was taken into account the pro-Brexit coverage out-sold Remain by a ratio of 80:20.225 The party-political nature of this representation was also noticeably skewed towards the Conservative party. The top twenty media appearances in that same period included twelve Conservative MPs

223 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.31. 224 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.38. 225 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.38. (one UKIP), eight of those backing Leave so the campaign looked like a blue on blue political fight. The two main figures were David Cameron and Boris Johnson, backing Remain and Leave respectively. David Cameron did have the most coverage but his ‘failings’ from February (that were venomously attacked in the media) had lost him credibility. It was evident that the years of banal nationalism juxtaposed with banal or even hot Euroscepticism meant that when the campaign officially began after the infamous February weekend that the Leave camp had a monumental ‘head start’ and it would be improbable that Remain could catch up or even have a fair chance. Would it be absurd to claim that the Leave camp had won before it had really begun?

If one was to look at the newspaper coverage from the dominant Eurosceptic press, there was a lot of misinformation and outright lies that either took an incredibly long time to be corrected or was left to fuel these unsubstantiated claims. is the chairman and editor-in-chief of infacts.org, the journalist enterprise making the fact-based case against Brexit.226 “Day in, day out we rebutted inaccurate stories that appeared in the press – or misleading statements politicians were able to get away with on BBC.”227 The pro-Brexit press produced a plethora of false stories about the EU and many deceptive front-page splashes during the referendum. The industry’s main code of practice calls for corrections to be given ‘due prominence.’ This does not ask for equal prominence and because of the long- drawn-out complaints process the correction can take months to appear and will never be as prominent as the original story, usually tucked away in the corner of one of the inside pages. One of the earliest complaints of the campaign was The Sun’s ‘Queen backs Brexit’ front page on 9th March 2016.228 This story was likely to have influenced how ‘patriotic’ royalists voted, and it was not until two months later on the 17th May Ipso (Independent Press Standards Organisation) decided The Sun breached their code and had to print a correction.229 This correction appeared at the bottom of the front page and was much less prominent.

226 ‘Mission Statement,’ InFacts, accessed 14th June 2018 227 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.107. 228 , ‘Revealed: Queen backs Brexit as alleged EU bust-up with ex-Deputy PM emerges,’ The Sun, 28th July 2016 229 ‘IPSO upholds complaint against The Sun’s ‘Queen backs Brexit’ headline,’ IPSO Press release, 17th May 2016 Another article that made it on the front page on the 6th March 2016 read ‘EU seeks control of our coasts.’ The sub-head claimed, “Britannia will no longer rule the waves as Brussels threatens our island sovereignty.”230 This deixis is very effective. ‘Our’ coasts are threatened by the EU, and so is ‘our’ island sovereignty. Also, evoking a sense of national pride with ‘Britannia will no longer rule the waves.’ A clear reference to Britain’s past navel superiority. This was not true. The EU’s plans for a coast guard only covered the Schengen Area and as previously stated Britain has never been part of this. The Sunday Express printed a correction on the bottom of page 30 and on their website, it looks like the first correction was published long after the referendum on 4th October 2016.231

Although the ‘flagging’ of the nation was more ‘hot’ in the four months leading up to the referendum, it does not mean that the banality had disappeared. The deixis of the homeland places ‘us’ within ‘our’ nation and was still of great importance. At the end of March, Vote Leave released a dossier of the 50 most dangerous EU citizens allowed in the UK. With the title ‘Free movement of criminals is a risk to ‘our’ security.’ Out of the 50 identified, 45 went on to commit crimes in Britain, including the murder of a 14-year-old girl and instances of rape.232 In the same month, Vote Leave also released details of the expenses that had been claimed by ‘Eurocrats’ making sure to link it to the nation. “Most families have been hit hard since the financial crisis…but EU officials are using ‘our’ money to fund their jollies and exorbitant expenses claims.233

The Economist organised the data found on the European Commission’s website debunking Euromyths told by the British press into a chart that can be found in chapter 4 labelled, ‘Lies, damned and directives.’ The Economist broke the data down into three charts, myth category, publication and then lies told each year from 1992 until 2016, highlighting the most bizarre.

230 Mair et al: Brexit, Trump and the media, p.11. 231 Anonymous, ‘EU to control our coasts – correction,’ The Express, 4th October 2016 232 Jack Doyle and Ian Drury, ‘Deadly cost of our open borders: damning dossier lists a catalogue of murders and rapes committed in Britain by 50 foreign criminals who were let in under EU rules,’ The Daily Mail, 29th March 2016 233 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.40. 5.2 The church of the NHS

IPSOS/MORI found 68% of Britons agreed the NHS was a “symbol of what is great about Great Britain” and everything should be done to maintain it.234 Opinium also asked a sample of British people what makes them proud to be British and the NHS topped the list with 36%, a sizeable lead to British history in second place at 25%.235 Former Conservative chancellor once observed the NHS is “the closest thing the English have to a religion”236 so it is no wonder it has been utilised so often in anti-EU rhetoric. If you want the British public to turn against the EU, the best route is to portray it as a threat to ’our’ . It is not surprising the big red bus that claimed, “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund ‘our’ NHS instead” with the subheading, “Let’s take back control,” was so powerful. The bus was also deliberately painted red to suggest to Labour voters that backing Brexit was their party’s choice.237 This message was reiterated by those who supported Leave on numerous occasions during the campaign and it can still be seen on the official Vote Leave’s website at the end of April 2018.238 The figures were quickly debunked but IPSOS MORI found 47% of the public believed these claims to be true and 14% did not know whether it was false, one week before the vote.239 Our NHS is precious to us, the British public and obviously £350 million a week sounds like a lot of money but the statement is simply not true. This did not take into consideration the rebate and other ‘hidden’ benefits from membership. In 2014 the rebate reduced the UK’s contribution by 35%240 which means the contributions were more like £227 million a week but also looking at it more objectively the UK’s contributions accounted for less than 1% of its GDP and as I mentioned earlier, the Welsh were receiving more from EU funding than they themselves were paying out.

234 Hugh Pym, ‘How much do we love the NHS?,’ BBC, 29th January 2015, 235 James Crouch, ‘NHS tops the Pride of Britain list,’ Opinium, 9th February 2016 236 Anonymous, ‘The English patient,’ The Economist, 27th July 2000, 237 Shipman: All Out War, p.352. 238 ‘Briefing cost,’ Vote Leave, accessed April 2018 239 Jon Stone, ‘Nearly half of Britons believe Vote Leave’s false ‘£350 million a week to the EU’ claim,’ The Independent, 16th June 2016 240 ‘The UK ‘rebate’ on the EU budget: An explanation of the abatement and other correction mechanisms,’ European Parliament, 18th February 2016

Source: The Independent, ‘Brexit: Vote Leave chief who created £350m NHS claim on bus admits leaving EU could be ‘an error’

The National Centre for Social Research report (mentioned earlier) combined the research of BSA, NCSR and British Election Study Panel asked Britons their reasons for voting Leave. It found 88% of those who thought immigration was the biggest issue voted Leave, and 90% of those who chose sovereignty.241 As I demonstrated earlier, immigration (EU especially) is hugely beneficial to Britain but the ubiquitous anti-immigrant rhetoric and the very little effort put towards the impediment any of this undeserving malevolence any anti-immigrant rhetoric would resonate with voters, especially if it threatened ‘our’ sovereignty, and ‘our’ beloved NHS. Therefore, Vote Leave pushed immigration to the forefront. At the end of May, Vote Leave had released a video suggesting Cameron supported joining the EU and ‘cannot be trusted’242 followed by Michael Gove arguing that Turkey, as well as four other countries, could join the EU as soon as 2020 and lead to 5.2 million extra people moving to the UK, a population the size of Scotland or four cities the size of Birmingham. Gove also claimed it would increase the pressure on A&E by 28%.243 One Remain source

241 Anonymous, ‘Brexit vote: The breakdown,’ BBC, 7th December 2016 242 ‘Paving the Road to Ankara,’ YouTube (Vote Leave), uploaded 20th May 2016 243 Rowena Mason, ‘Gove: EU immigrant influx will make NHS unsustainable by 2030,”’The Guardian, 20th May 2016 equated these tactics to UKIP, “Michael Gove may be mouthing the words, but Nigel Farage is writing the tune.”244

This is almost certainly why Nigel Farage unveiled his infamous Breaking point poster a few weeks before the referendum. The poster depicts a queue of non-white migrants with ‘Breaking Point’ in big red letters and the subheading ‘The EU has failed us’ and ‘We must break free of the EU and take back control of ‘our’ borders.’ The response was probably not what Farage had hoped or expected as George Osbourne compared it to Nazi propaganda, Gove said it made him ‘shudder’ but both did comment on immigration, claiming it needed to be controlled.245 It may have been compared to Nazi propaganda, but it opened a dialogue about immigration. Perhaps that was Farage’s plan; after all, he regularly used the ‘shock value’ to get more coverage. Also, a huge proportion of Leave voters saw immigration as the biggest issue and the whole point of the poster was to get people to vote Leave. It may have got bad press, but it worked.

Source: The Guardian, ‘Nigel Farage’s anti-migrant poster reported to police’

244 Rowena Mason, ‘Gove: EU immigrant influx will make NHS unsustainable by 2030,”’The Guardian, 20th May 2016 245 Ben Riley-Smith, ‘EU referendum: George Osbourner compared Ukip ‘breaking point’ migration poster to Nazi propaganda,’ The Telegraph, 19th June 2016 5.3 The Boris effect

When one looks at the campaign, Boris Johnson’s influence cannot be ignored. Nearly three quarters of constituencies held by the Conservative party at the time of the referendum voted for Brexit.246 Nearly half of the 329 Conservative MPs declared their allegiance to Leave but none of them had as much of an influence as Johnson. I touched on the volatility of Euroscepticism and how there are many factors behind it. In addition to the media, was a factor put forward by Hooghe and Marks, ‘cues.’ This was the basic idea that when it comes to often complex political issues people rely on their leaders or opinion-makers to provide a ‘shortcut’, a steer to help them reach a decision.247 In the early years of British membership ‘cues’ were far more influential and elites were generally trusted by the public. That has deteriorated over time and UKIP’s 2010 ‘Sod the lot’ campaign is highly indicative of that loss in confidence among the British public.248 Boris Johnson, was one of those elites that managed to remain very popular and during the campaign boasted the highest average likability rating amongst other MPs. Statistical analysis calculating the probability of voting Leave according to people’s feelings towards Johnson showed there were strong effects. Unsurprisingly, for voters that did not like him, the chance of voting Leave was extremely low, but it climbed sharply as feelings became more positive. Even for people that gave him a mid-point score, the probability to vote Leave was .53/10. This indicated over half were at least lukewarm and so a small majority were likely to vote Leave.249 Another circumstance that benefitted Boris was Cameron’s refusal to attack him and Gove throughout the campaign, until it was too late. When they did, Boris had already established himself as the most trusted and most popular political voice of the campaign.250

246 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.150. 247 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.66. 248 Helene Mulholland, ‘’Sod the lot,’ says Ukip as it launches election campaign,’ The Guardian, 13th April 2010 249 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.172. 250 Shipman: All Out War, p.237. 5.4 Did it resonate?

Despite the inaccuracies, half-truths and numerous lies told by the Leave camp, in June a YouGov survey suggested Leave held the advantage over the general perception of the British public. Slightly larger percentages of the respondents perceived Leave to be honest, positive and ‘clear about their case’ and in contrast Remain was seen by large percentages to be dishonest, negative and to be unclear about its case.251 The public perceptions were conducted 5-6 June, 17-19 June and 20-22 June and even though there are fluctuations for both camps, Leave always held an advantage over Remain. It is not surprising Remain was considered negative as their official strategy mainly focused on the negative impact Brexit would have on the economy, a strategy that would become known and ‘brushed off’ as ‘.’ David Cameron was supported by the London Stock Exchange, Standard & Poor (the credit rating agency), TheCityUK and The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in warning Britain about Brexit’s threat to the economy. In April the government distributed a leaflet to every household, ‘Why the government believes that voting to remain in the EU is the best decision for the UK’252 with a surfeit of negative implications and of the 16 pages, only 2 demonstrated the benefits of remaining in the EU. Furthermore, the Leave camp were quick to divulge this leaflet had cost the taxpayer £9.3 million and gave an unfair advantage to Remain.253 The following month Cameron attempted to shift attention to national security and claimed “Can ‘we’ be so sure that peace and stability on ‘our’ continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt?” and just like the redolent rhetoric of the Leave campaign he argued “From Caesar’s legions to the wars of the Spanish succession, from Napoleonic wars to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Proud as we are of ‘our’ global reach as ‘our’ global connections, Britain has also always been a European power, and ‘we’ always will be.” Again, the reception was not in his favour, one journalist wondered why Cameron decided to hold the referendum if one of the outcomes could be war.254

251 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.41. 252 ‘Why the government believes that voting to remain in the EU is the best decision for the UK – with references,’ Cabinet Office, 6th April 2016 253 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.44. 254 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.45. This is not to say Leave was not negative and did not partake in their own ‘project fear,’ where Leave excelled was their ability to put forward a convincing, clear, simple and comprehensible argument as to why leaving would ‘fix’ all the negative aspects that Britain, as they suggested, endured because of EU membership. Leave had a mixture of positive and negative messages, the issue over immigration as their major negative message could be rectified as long as ‘we’ leave the EU. Their more positive spin was also their argument for restore ‘our’ sovereignty and democracy. These could also provide a more politically correct explanation for voting Leave. Another positive spin was the £350 million a week to the NHS, as long as ‘we’ leave the EU. All this covered with their simple, but very effective slogan, ‘Take back control.’

Despite this public perception that considered the Remain camp to be mostly negative, their message about the economy was not completely disregarded. Throughout the campaign YouGov had asked respondents how leaving the EU might impact on different areas, including the economy, jobs, immigration, Britain’s global influence, pensions, terrorism and the NHS. People did tend to believe the economy and their finances would be better off if Britain were to stay in the EU but Remain’s performance on other issues were far less impressive and a huge majority consistently believed that leaving the EU would help the country to control immigration, which was more of a concern for many voters.255 Cameron’s arguments about national security appeared implausible and leaving the EU was seen by many to be the only option if ‘we’ were to control immigration and reduce the risk of terrorism. Leave’s arguments for Brexit strengthening the NHS also resonated more with the voters, the same YouGov poll showed a greater proportion of the respondents believed leaving the EU would do more to help the NHS than staying in the EU. (See figure 3.2 below) This can be explained by Leave’s effective message but also the failings of Remain. Leave strengthened their anti-immigrant arguments with the threat to the NHS and in previous chapters I have illustrated the many arguments Leave put forward how leaving will benefit the EU.

Andrew Cooper’s (pollster for Remain) focus groups found people believed control of immigration would mean less pressure on public services and leaving would mean more money for the NHS and most people refused to believe migrants’ contributions in taxes outweighed their use of public services.256 Andrew Cooper asked a nationally representative sample online between 2nd February – 4th February 2018 ‘Thinking back to the EU

255 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.48. 256 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.49. referendum campaign in 2016, what do you remember were the main arguments in favour of Brexit put forward by the official Vote Leave campaign?’ and voters overwhelmingly remember two arguments: curbing immigration and more money for the NHS.257 That is not to say that Remain did not warn against the threat to the NHS and leaving the EU but attempts to prevent the NHS from turning into an area of strength for Leave may have been helped by a proactive Labour Party Leader.258 Historically the Labour party and the NHS are closely linked in the public mind but Labour’s current leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was an unenthusiastic participant for Remain. David Chaplin, a Labour party blogger, like many others, felt Corbyn’s support for Remain was half-hearted and polls showed that Corbyn’s Euro agnosticism had left around half of Labour voters unclear where their party stood on Brexit.259

257 Andrew Cooper’s Tweet: “Voters overwhelmingly now remember only two arguments being made in favour of Brexit before the referendum: curb immigration & more money for the NHS” (@AndrewCooper__, 9th February 2018)

258 Clarke et al: Brexit: Why Britain voted to Leave the European Union, p.49. 259 Shipman: All Out War, p.354. Conclusion

In the previous chapters I attempted to answer the question ‘how banal nationalism and Euroscepticism contributed to the outcome of the Brexit referendum,’ and to ascertain how it was utilised by the Leave camp to an extent that led to many people voting to Leave because of false perceptions. I have demonstrated how banal nationalism is always discernible and that is why at times of crises citizens are willing to risk their lives in the name of the nation, with banal nationalism transforming into hot nationalism. It is also how Euroscepticism was so effective; Eurosceptics portrayed the EU as a threat to Britain and banal nationalism meant if British citizens perceive the EU as a threat to their nation then they will consider the EU to be a threat to them and action will need to be taken. It was the unique combination of banal nationalism with the decades of Euroscepticism that made Leave arguments so successful. Looking at the statistics, the result was marginal, only 51.9% of those that voted decided that leaving the EU was the best option for Britain but as I have previously shown, banal nationalism was utilised by both demonstrating that it is an effective tool. If it is true that false perceptions led to people voting Leave, then we must acknowledge how marginal the vote was. It is evident a high majority of Leave voters were influenced by false perceptions but if one was to look at the electorate, this was only a minority.

What I wanted to look at is how banal nationalism was used to create false perceptions and how effective that utilisation was. I established this in the previous chapter, using surveys by YouGov which found slightly larger respondents found the Leave camp to be more honest and the only argument Remain managed to win was the one on the economy. In hindsight, that was not sufficient to win. Contrary to this opinion, Leave was more likely to use dishonest tactics. But the fact that it was only a slight majority that believed this, is indicative of how close the result was. There were many reasons people voted to Leave and there was never only one, but the main four reasons (Leave focused on everyone) were immigration, sovereignty, identity and the NHS. The NHS is linked to the other three, immigration threatens it, loss of sovereignty to the EU is also a threat and the NHS is important to ‘our’ identity, considered the most prized part of ‘our’ identity. Loss of sovereignty is to also threaten ‘our’ identity and multiculturism as a result of mass immigration can also threaten ‘our’ identity etc… It can be argued that Remains inadequacy to resonate with voters on these reasons was a factor behind the vote, but Leave was able to combine banal nationalism and Euroscepticism so effectively they provoked strong antagonistic emotions, utilising an arch-image of a political “enemy.”

In the aforementioned post-referendum survey, it was found that 90% of those that thought sovereignty was the biggest issue voted to Leave, and 88% of those who thought immigration was the biggest issue also voted to Leave. It is safe to say that most of the people that voted to Leave, voted on false pretences, whether they knew it or not. Overall it may not have been a big margin or a big proportion of the electorate but as the Leave side won because either sovereignty or immigration were considered the biggest issue in Britain and we are focusing on the outcome (in which Leave won) and the reasons Remain supporters voted are only of use for contrast. These false perceptions did have an impact on the outcome and banal/hot nationalism was a very effective tool. Evidently, the economy was not one of the key issues for the British public but to confirm or deny the effectiveness of utilisation I will look at the different camps arguing on behalf of Leave.

Firstly, the United Kingdom Independence Party. This group of people, undoubtably were more susceptible to nationalism (in its banal or hot form), as well as the false perceptions of the EU. 98% of UKIP supporters voted to Leave and years of research found the party’s success was truly consolidated once the British public no longer considered it to be a single- issue party and focused more on what the public were worried about, such as immigration. The leaking of the widespread abuse of parliamentary expenses in every party was also beneficial. UKIP supporters were more likely to be older, white and poorly educated working class. They were also more likely to have a more assertive sense of nationalism and believed national identity was acquired through ancestry. They were more likely to have left school at 16 so it is unlikely they see immigration as beneficial. For these reasons, they were more likely to be swayed by hot nationalism.

The plethora of anti-immigrant rhetoric by UKIP which was augmented by the media and other politicians fuelled this anti-immigrant sentiment and this false perception of immigration was pervasive among UKIP supporters. The EU free movement is also misconstrued, the UK is not part of Schengen and Britain has ‘special treatment,’ in contrast to the other member states. As research has found EU immigrants were, in reality, more likely to be in employment, their presence created more jobs (rather than ‘stealing’ them from nationals) and were contributing significantly more to the economy than they were using public services. UKIP is also infamous for their inaccurate claim that the EU is undemocratic, and that Britain has lost its sovereignty. There is strong evidence that a large majority of UKIP supporters voted to Leave as a consequence of these false perceptions created through banal/hot nationalist rhetoric.

If one was to look at UKIP supporters and why they voted to Leave, then it is an appropriate claim to make that their decision to Leave was largely a consequence of false perceptions created through banal and hot nationalism. But UKIP was only a small part of the vote and this claim is not as true for the left-wing vote as it was for the right. It is true that Labour had strong left-wing voices in support for Brexit and it is true that they too utilised the deixis of the nation but only a third of Labour supporters voted to Leave so it is fair to say they were not as susceptible as the right, especially the far right. But, Labour MPs flagged the nation and called for reclamation of British sovereignty. They called for British people to ‘Take back control.’ They repeatedly reiterated the problems in Greece, implying the EU had already destroyed the Greek nation, ‘we’ cannot allow them to destroy ‘ours.’ They supported the fictitious claim to give that £350 million a week to ‘our’ NHS and were always ‘flagging’ the nation. Labour was not as vocal on immigration as UKIP and the Conservatives but frequently called for British sovereignty and labelled the EU as unaccountable and unelected.

The left-wing arguments for Leave differed to the Right. Labour mainly focused on the economy and its foundation in socialist ideology. Labour MPs consistently defended their party and all the rights Labour has given Britain, and there was genuine resentment of the EU. The Right, in contrast, focused on immigration and relied on misinformation or lies. They may have argued differently for Brexit but both utilised banal nationalism.

Left-wing support for Brexit was not as potent as UKIP, or the right but they too contributed to the outcome, and they too voted to Leave because of false perceptions. It may not have been to as much of an extent, but the Labour supporters that voted for Brexit, voted because of banal and hot nationalism. Perhaps the left-wing ‘flagging’ of the nation was more often banal than hot, which cannot be said for the Conservatives or UKIP. Hot nationalism is only possible because of banal nationalism but it is its banal form that goes unnoticed and allows ‘us’ to think that others are the nationalists.

The Conservative party was interesting regarding the campaign, it is known that Cameron called the referendum to appease his Eurosceptic backbenchers and although the party was officially neutral, the party was nearly evenly split between Leave and Remain. It is true that all politicians speak the language of the nation, both sides of the Conservative party used this language, but the Remain side used it to warn Britain about the threat to ‘the’ economy and the Leave side used it to establish or support erroneous claims. Nearly 70% of Conservatives voted to Leave so, like UKIP, it is fair to say that they were extremely susceptible to MPs like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove’s nationalist rhetoric. The Conservative party are known for its tough stance on immigration long before UKIP, and in the campaign, they supported the anti-immigration rhetoric of UKIP, but trying to portray themselves as less extreme. This was very effective for the voters that did not want to associate themselves with the far-right, but it meant more people were exposed to lies about EU immigration, with very few sources to refute them. MPs like Boris Johnson were also claiming to be patriots, reminiscing in ‘our’ great history, and at the same time comparing the EU to Nazis or the Third Reich. The nationalism was not banal anymore, but it was not nationalism, this was patriotism. MPs claimed they were fighting for sovereignty, money for the NHS and preventing mass immigration, and this could all be achieved if ‘we’ left the EU. While the Conservative MPs that supported Remain were only focusing on the economy, Conservative MP Brexiters were effectively utilising a long history of British Euroscepticism and banal nationalism to influence a majority of Conservative voters to vote because of false perceptions.

The media was a very effective tool in the campaign, on the surface there was an even split in support but when circulation was taken into account the pro-Brexit coverage out-sold Remain by a ratio of 80:20. The two bestselling papers of this pro-Brexit coverage were The Sun and The Daily Mail and as both are right-wing and have a long history of Anti-EU articles, it is evident that there was strong support for Brexiter Conservatives. In the years leading up to the campaign these newspapers printed many articles that helped to create these false perceptions of the EU and as British people depended on the media for information on the EU it was easy for the press to spread misinformation about the EU. In the first chapter I demonstrated the ubiquitous banal nationalism in the national press, as well as a British culture of Euroscepticism. In the third chapter I developed that argument and showed just how useful the media was as a tool to spread and support false information, as well as encouraging Britons to vote Leave. The media also played an important role regarding Wales. Wales was in a position that left many surprised they voted the way they did as Wales receives more in funding from the EU than they pay in taxes, but in the end, they voted to Leave. This was a direct result of a large proportion of their population getting their ‘facts’ on the EU from English newspapers. The same English newspapers that ‘flag’ the nation in every article, whether it was on the EU or not. Banal nationalism and Euroscepticism contributed to the outcome of the Brexit referendum, in a variety of ways.

Brexit has exposed dangerous divisions between the British electorate. The rise in hate crime since the referendum is worrying and the animosity between Remainers and Brexiters is extremely palpable. Remainers are adamant Britain does not leave the EU and the Brexiters are adamant the government goes through with the referendum result.

The EU is not perfect and the Left-wing arguments for Brexit do reveal genuine problems with the EU, but leaving will not give Britain the chance to rectify them. Leaving will only isolate Britain from Europe, one of its closest geopolitical partners and dilute Britain’s say in global matters. To begin the healing, Britain needs to address the divisions. Too many times the EU was blamed for bad national government policies and too many times minorities were used as scapegoats.

Perhaps the first step could be addressing the power of the right-wing media and the lack of any real punishment for its spreading of lies and misinformation. Another factor we need to address is the huge inequality in Britain. Although EU immigration does not take jobs from nationals or lower wages, there are real grievances among the working class. The highest earners are avoiding tax or paying very little while millions of Britons are finding it extremely difficult to get by and the significant rise in foodbanks is worrying. It will be long, and it will not be easy but if we want to learn from Brexit then we need to work on fixing the divisions and economic inequalities. Only then can we work on creating a better relationship between Britain and the EU. Britain has always been known as the awkward partner, perhaps Britain should look ‘closer to home’ when wondering why that is. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Marlene Lenthang, Amie Gordon and Keiligh Baker, ‘Viewers praise former Hollyoaks actress Rachel Shenton for delivering her Oscars victory speech in sign language after she made a promise to her deaf six-year-old British co-star in The Silent Child,’ The Daily Mail, 5th March 2018, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5462287/Heart-warmed-fans-praise-Rachel-Shenton-sign- language-speech.html

Matthew Holehouse, Tom Whitehead and Henry Samuel, ‘EU pays jobless migrants to come to Britain,’ The Telegraph, 3rd august 2015, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11781637/EU-pays-jobless-migrants-to- come-to-Britain.html

Matthew Taylor, ‘English Defence League: Inside the violent world of Britain’s new far right,’ The Guardian, 28th May 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/may/28/english-defence-league- guardian-investigation

Michael Gove, ‘Soviet-style control freaks are a threat to our independence,’ The Times, 25th April 2016, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/soviet-style-control-freaks-will-worsen-migration- free-for-all-m3rfb6vmb

Nicholas Watt, ‘EU referendum: Churchill would back Remain, Soames says,’ BBC, 10th May 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36253224

Oli Smith, ‘’EU was a noble dream turned into a nightmare’ Labour MP’s stirring Leave speech,’ The Express, 22nd June 2016, https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/682213/Labour-Leave-MP-EU- nightmare-Brexit-Gisela-Stuart

Patrick Wintour, (Interview) ‘German ambassador: second world war image of Britain has fed Euroscepticism,’ The Guardian, 29th January 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/29/german-ambassador-peter-ammon-second- world-war-image-of-britain-has-fed-euroscepticism

Peter Foster, ‘EU deal: What David Cameron asked for… and what he actually got,’ The Telegraph, 14th June 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/eu-deal-what-david-cameron- asked-for-and-what-he-actually-got/

Peter Walker, ‘Ukip causes Premier League clash with choice of new logo,’ The Guardian, 29th September 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/29/ukip-causes-premier-league- clash-with-choice-of-new-logo

’Press reports on first EURES Job mobility scheme conflate support for young unemployed Europeans with the Calais situation and do not reflect reality,’ European Commission blog, 7th August 2015, https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/press-reports-on-first-eures-job-mobility-scheme-conflate- support-for-young-unemployed-europeans-with-the-calais-situation-and-do-not-reflect-reality/

Rachel Lewis, ‘Why the British Still Talk About the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’,’ Time, 20th July 2017, http://time.com/4860620/dunkirk-spirit-phrase-history-world-war-2/ Richard Edwards, ‘General Election 2010: Ukip’s Nigel Farage has lucky escape after election stunt plane crash,’ The Telegraph, 7th May 2010, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election- 2010/7685912/General-Election-2010-Ukips-Nigel-Farage-has-lucky-escape-after-election-stunt- plane-crash.html

Rob Merrick, ‘Brexit: Vote Leave chief who created £350m NHS claim on bus admits leaving EU could be ‘an error’,’ The Independent, 4th July 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-news-vote-leave-director-dominic- cummings-leave-eu-error-nhs-350-million-lie-bus-a7822386.html

Rowena Mason, ‘Gove: EU immigrant influx will make NHS unsustainable by 2030,”’The Guardian, 20th May 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/20/eu-immigrant-influx-michael- gove-nhs-unsustainable

Ryan Butcher, ‘UK weather: ‘Coldest week of winter’ to bring snow to most of country as temperatures hit -7C,’ The Independent, 4th February 2018, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-weather-coldest-week-winter-snow- temperatures-forecast-ice-warnings-latest-freezing-cold-a8193426.html

Ryan Curran, ‘British people think their media is the most biased and right-wing in Europe – and they’re probably right,’ The Independent, 8th February 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/british-people-think-their-media-is-the-most-biased-and- right-wing-in-europe-and-theyre-probably-a6860911.html

Sam Jones, Stephen Bergen and agencies, ‘Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence,’ The Guardian, 2nd October 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/01/dozens-injured-as-riot-police-storm-catalan-ref- polling-stations

Steve Hawkes, ‘RED PERIL Jeremy Corbyn ‘plans to raise corporation tax by 8 per cent for EVERY business in Britain’,’ The Sun, 27 April 2017, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3423422/jeremy- corbyn-plans-to-raise-corporation-tax-by-8-per-cent-for-every-business-in-britain/

Steve Hawkes, Lynn Davidson and Harry Cole, ‘BOJO’S RALLYING CRY Boris Johnson urges Sun readers ‘with history in their hands’ to back Brexit,’ The Sun, 22nd June 2016, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1326774/boris-johnson-urges-sun-readers-with-history-in-their- hands-to-back-brexit/

Steve Swinford, ‘EU threatens to fine Britain unless it pays £1.7billion bill,’ The Telegraph, 27th October 2014, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11190124/EU-threatens- to-fine-Britain-unless-it-pays-1.7billion-bill.html

Suella Fernandes, ‘Britain needs Brexit so it can decide its own fate without asking permission from European judges,’ The Telegraph, 20th June 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/20/britain-needs-brexit-so-it-can-decide-its-own-fate- without-askin/

‘The EU budget and UK contributions – the facts, 2013,’ European Commission blog, 3rd November 2014, https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/the-eu-budget-and-uk-contributions-the-facts-2013/

‘The UK ‘rebate’ on the EU budget: An explanation of the abatement and other correction mechanisms,’ European Parliament, 18th February 2016, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_BRI(2016)577973 Tim Ross, ‘Boris Johnson: The EU wants a superstate, just as Hitler did,’ The Telegraph, 15th May 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/boris-johnson-the-eu-wants-a-superstate- just-as-hitler-did/

Toby Helm, ‘EU referendum: youth turnout almost twice as high as first thought,’ The Guardian, 10th July 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout- brexit-twice-as-high

Toby Helm, ‘Strange case of the European dog that didn’t manage one bark,’ The Telegraph, 4th May 2005, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1489272/Strange-case-of-the-European-dog- that-didnt-manage-one-bark.html

Tom Newton Dunn, ‘Revealed: Queen backs Brexit as alleged EU bust-up with ex-Deputy PM emerges,’ The Sun, 28th July 2016, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1078504/revealed-queen-backs- brexit-as-alleged-eu-bust-up-with-ex-deputy-pm-emerges/

Tom Parfitt, ‘Now the European Union pays jobless migrants THOUSANDS to claim jobs in Britain,’ The Express, 4th August 2015, https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/595858/European-Union- unemployed-Britain-jobs-migrants-immigration-referendum-Ukip

Websites

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Tweets

Barack Obama’s Tweet: “The UK is an extraordinary partner for America and a force for good in an unstable world. I hope it remains strong, robust and united. - bo” (@ObamaWhiteHouse, 17th September 2014)

Andrew Cooper’s Tweet: “Voters overwhelmingly now remember only two arguments being made in favour of Brexit before the referendum: curb immigration & more money for the NHS” (@AndrewCooper__, 9th February 2018)