FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES
Comparison of stances of right- wing populist politicians towards the withdrawal from the European Union: discourse analysis of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage’s speeches
Master's Thesis BC. ANNA LAŠTOVIČKOVÁ
Supervisor: Mgr. Monika Brusenbauch Meislová, Ph.D.
Department of International Relations and European Studies International Relations Brno 2021
COMPARISON OF STANCES OF RIGHT-WING POPULIST POLITICIANS TOWARDS THE WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF TOMIO OKAMURA AND NIGEL FARAGE’S SPEECHES
Bibliographic Record
Author: Bc. Anna Laštovičková Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University Department of International Relations and European Studies Title of Thesis: Comparison of stances of right-wing populist politicians towards the withdrawal from the European Union: discourse analysis of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage’s speeches Degree Programme: International Relations Supervisor: Mgr. Monika Brusenbauch Meislová, Ph.D. Academic Year: 2021 Number of Pages: 74 Keywords: right-wing populism, European Union, withdrawal from the European Union, Tomio Okamura, Nigel Farage, critical discourse analysis, discourse-historical approach COMPARISON OF STANCES OF RIGHT-WING POPULIST POLITICIANS TOWARDS THE WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF TOMIO OKAMURA AND NIGEL FARAGE’S SPEECHES
Abstract
This diploma thesis aims to analyse and compare the discourses of selected Czech and British right-wing populist politicians, focusing on their stances towards the withdrawal of their countries from the European Union. To do so, it utilizes discourse analysis of speeches of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage, two prominent figures of right-wing populism and, in the examined period, chairmen of the right-wing populist parties Dawn of Direct Democracy, Freedom and Direct Democracy, and UK Independence Party. The thesis employs Ruth Wodak’s approach to critical discourse analysis, through which it examines the main discourse topics of selected speeches, as well as specific discursive strategies and linguistic means and realizations.
COMPARISON OF STANCES OF RIGHT-WING POPULIST POLITICIANS TOWARDS THE WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF TOMIO OKAMURA AND NIGEL FARAGE’S SPEECHES
Statutory Declaration
I hereby declare that I have written the submitted Master's Thesis concerning the topic of Comparison of stances of right-wing populist politicians towards the withdrawal from the European Union: discourse analysis of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage’s speeches independently. All the sources used for the purpose of finishing this thesis have been adequately referenced and are listed in the Bibliography.
In Brno, 9 May 2021
...... Bc. Anna Laštovičková
COMPARISON OF STANCES OF RIGHT-WING POPULIST POLITICIANS TOWARDS THE WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF TOMIO OKAMURA AND NIGEL FARAGE’S SPEECHES
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Monika Brusenbauch Meislová, Ph.D., for her continuous encouragement and valuable advice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents
List of Tables 7
List of Terms and Acronyms 8
1 Introduction 9
2 Literature Review 11
3 Theoretical Framework 13 3.1 Social Constructivism ...... 13 3.2 Right-wing Populism ...... 14
4 Methodology 18 4.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) ...... 18 4.2 Case Selection ...... 21 4.3 Sample Selection ...... 25
5 Analysis 30 5.1 Discourse-Historical Analysis of Tomio Okamura’s Selected Speeches ...... 30 5.2 Discourse-Historical Analysis of Nigel Farage’s Selected Speeches ...... 45
6 Conclusion and Discussion 60
Bibliography 63
Appendix A Selected list of discursive strategies in right-wing populist discourse 73
Appendix B Selected list of content-related topoi in right-wing populist discourse 74
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LIST OF TABLES
List of Tables
Table 1. Analysed speeches of Tomio Okamura. By author. Table 2. Analysed speeches of Nigel Farage. By author.
7 LIST OF TERMS AND ACRONYMS
List of Terms and Acronyms
BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation CDA – critical discourse analysis CL – critical linguistics DHA – discourse-historical approach EP – European Parliament EU – European Union GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation MEP – Member of the European Parliament NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization ODS – Občanská demokratická strana (Civic Democratic Party) SPD – Svoboda a přímá demokracie (Freedom and Direct Democracy) UK – United Kingdom UKIP – UK Independence Party ÚPD – Úsvit přímé demokracie (Dawn of Direct Democracy) US; USA – United States of America USSR – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
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INTRODUCTION
1 Introduction
This thesis analyses the discourses of two right-wing populist politicians, Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage, focusing on their stances towards the withdrawal of their countries, that is, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, from the European Union. There are several reasons as to why these specific countries and these specific politicians were selected for the analysis; these reasons are elaborated on below as well as further on in the thesis. On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, becoming the first member state of the EU to do so, and thus sending shockwaves through the world. The country’s decision to withdraw from the EU immediately became a focal point of numerous analyses assessing the future of both the UK and the EU, as well as the reasons behind the vote. Among the most important factors which had contributed to the way the British voted was the strength of the nation’s Eurosceptic sentiments, as in the years and decades preceding the 2016 referendum, Euroscepticism had “defined the public and media debate” regarding the UK’s membership in the EU (Oliver 2018, chap. 2; Clarke, Goodwin and Whiteley 2017, 160). Gradually, Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing populist UK Independence Party, had become one of the most visible faces of the British Eurosceptic scene and, in the months leading up to the British plebiscite, an important figure in the Leave campaign as well (Clarke, Goodwin and Whiteley 2017, 28–32). Given the fact that the Czech Republic, too, belongs to the most Eurosceptic member states of the EU (European Parliament 2018, Stone 2019), the British decision renewed a debate at the time about the future of the Czech membership in the Union. It was especially Tomio Okamura and his right-wing populist party Svoboda a přímá demokracie (Freedom and Direct Democracy, SPD), vocal critics of the Czech Republic’s membership in the EU, who welcomed the UK’s decision and have since continued to frequently request that such a referendum be held in the Czech Republic as well (Kaniok and Hloušek 2018, 520). Even though the scenario of “Czexit” still seems rather unlikely at the moment (Stone 2019), it is important to bear in mind that this can change depending on the current political situation in the country. Furthermore, another motivation for choosing this particular topic is the fact that in recent years, “right-wing populist parties have moved
9 INTRODUCTION away from the margins” and “have become mainstream parties and movements” (Wodak 2015, x). The parties’ leaders and their rhetoric have played a substantial role in this process. Therefore, to understand the messages and the electoral success of right-wing populists, it is essential to take their discourse into account (Wodak 2015, xi). Against this background, the objective of this thesis is to analyse and compare the discourses of the two mentioned right-wing populist politicians, Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage, focusing on their stances towards the withdrawal of their countries from the European Union. The research question that the thesis seeks to answer is:
To what extent do the discourses of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage regarding the EU withdrawal of the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, respectively, resemble and differ from each other?
In order to answer the question, the thesis employs Ruth Wodak’s (2001, 2009, 2015) discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis through which it examines selected speeches of Okamura and Farage. This method will enable the main discourse topics to be determined, along with specific discursive strategies and linguistic means and realizations utilized by both politicians to convey their respective messages. The thesis is organized in the following manner. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the published literature covering the topics of the right-wing populist discourse on the EU, and the EU-related discourses of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage. Furthermore, it explains how this thesis connects to the pre-existing research. Chapter 3 presents the theoretical basis of the thesis, i.e., the social constructivism theory as well as the ideology of right-wing populism. In the methodology-focused Chapter 4, critical discourse analysis and discourse-historical approach are introduced, accompanied by sections dedicated to the processes of selecting specific cases and samples. Chapter 5 is devoted to the analysis of Okamura’s and Farage’s speeches, with each of their sections divided into three parts. These cover the most frequently recurring discourse topics, discursive strategies, and linguistic means and realizations, that is, the three dimensions of the discourse-historical approach, as proposed by Wodak. The last part of the thesis, Chapter 6, then summarises the most prominent findings and provides a few concluding remarks.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
2 Literature Review
Although there is a plethora of both academic and non-academic publications concerning right-wing populism and its manifestations in Europe as well as in other parts of the world (such as Abromeit et al. 2016; Baier 2016; Greven 2016; Mudde 2016; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2012; Sandrin 2020; Swank and Betz 2003), the coverage of the topic of the right-wing populist discourse in the European Union is not as extensive. One of the few comprehensive overviews of the topic is provided by the 2013 publication Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse (Wodak, KhosraviNik and Mral 2013) which presents an overview of right-wing populist movements across Europe focusing on their policies and rhetoric. Hameleers (2019) delves into the subject of the content and effects of right-wing populist discourse in online Dutch media during and after the 2015 European refugee crisis. The topics of populist discourse as such and its impact on the future of the EU institutions are contemplated by Graeff (2017); Güler (2019) then analyses the ways in which members of the right-wing political groups in the European Parliament use discourses as “a means of controlling public discourse, and hence the public mind” regarding the topic of immigration. In the case of Tomio Okamura, discourse analyses relating to his stances towards the EU are even rarer to come across. Nevertheless, there are multiple relevant works worth mentioning, for instance Kim’s (2020) article which presents a discourse-analytic account of competing populisms in the Czech Republic, or the analysis of the performative aspects of Okamura’s rhetorical style by Jan Chovanec (2020). Furthermore, Císař and Kubát (2021) explore, among other phenomena, the discourse of Okamura’s party SPD on the EU at the time of the Covid- 19. The discourse of Nigel Farage has been given significantly more attention, with researchers conducting numerous analyses of both his speeches and his social media presence. Catherine MacMillan (2016), for example, studies the ways in which Farage and his UK Independence Party depict the EU in dystopian and totalitarian terms; she also offers a comparison of such narratives in the discourse of UKIP and the French party Front National (MacMillan 2017). In the work by Brusenbauch Meislová and Buckledee (2019), the discourse of populist sovereignism
11 LITERATURE REVIEW is investigated, focusing on Farage as well as three other right-wing hard Eurosceptic populist politicians. Regarding Farage’s online presence in particular, his use of the social network Twitter is of interest to Breeze (2020) who conducts a corpus-assisted study of Farage’s tweets in comparison to those of other prominent British politicians. Similarly, Albu (2016) discusses the linguistic strategies employed by the UKIP candidates in tweets sent during the 2014 European elections. In addition, the analysis by Ekström, Patrona and Thornborrow (2018) too deserves mentioning as it presents rhetorical devices utilized by Farage and other right-wing populist politicians to further emphasize their performative styles, and thus help them convey their messages. In contrast to the extensive literature on both Nigel Farage’s discourse and right-wing populism as such, there are only few analyses aiming to compare discourses of right-wing populist politicians from the regions of Central and Western Europe in relation to the EU;1 correspondingly, even less research has been done focusing on such politicians’ stances towards potential withdrawal of their countries from the Union. It is thus the ambition of this thesis to contribute to filling these research gaps. In order to do so, it examines and compares the stances of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage concerning the potential withdrawal of the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom from the European Union.
1 Such as the above-mentioned article by Brusenbauch Meislová and Buckledee (2021).
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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3 Theoretical Framework
3.1 Social Constructivism
This thesis is largely based on the premises of the social constructivism theory2 and its relation to discourse. Fundamental to this approach is the proposition that “human beings are social beings, and we would not be human but for our social relations” (Onuf 2013, 3). This essentially means that social relations “make or construct people – ourselves – into the kind of beings that we are” (ibid., 4). Hence, social constructivism is a belief that social reality is constructed by human agents and reproduced through their daily practices (Risse 2009, 145). The process of social construction, however, is not unidirectional: social constructivists believe that social structures and agents are mutually codetermined, and “insist on the mutual consitutiveness of (social) structures and agents” (ibid.). In other words, “people make society, and society makes people” (Onuf 2013, 4). Social constructivism reached the field of international relations studies in the 1980s and gained particular popularity with the end of the Cold War and the related “earthshaking changes, such as the decline of sovereignty, the growing social and economic importance of knowledge, globalization, the Internet, and changes in the natural environment” (Adler 2013, 118). Nevertheless, the previously dominant paradigms of neorealism and neoliberalism “had almost nothing to say about the scale of change” or about another newly emerging issues of interest, such as national identity (Onuf 2013, 31). Social constructivism, in contrast, was able to offer an explanation for these phenomena. Consequently, social constructivism entered the European integration studies in the 1990s. According to Risse (2009, 144), there has been “considerable confusion” in the field as to what precisely
2 According to some scholars, describing social constructivism as a theory is not entirely accurate. “Constructivism is not a theory as such. It does not offer general explanations for what people do, why societies differ, how the world changes” (Onuf 2013, 3). Instead, Onuf (ibid.) suggests thinking of constructivism as a way of studying social relations: “[w]hile it draws from a variety of other ways of studying such a broad and complex subject, it stands on its own as a system of concepts and propositions.”
13 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK distinguishes this theory from other approaches to the topic. Such lack of clarity might be caused by the fact that social constructivism, unlike its predecessors, did not make any substantive claims about European integration, its key actors or the Union’s future development (ibid.; Kratochvíl 2008, 181). Instead, constructivism introduced a brand new way of understanding the EU, its bodies, as well as its member states. Since these were all created by human society, they are social constructs, and can therefore change or even get replaced by different forms of social order (Kratochvíl 2008, 179). Rather than on the actors themselves, social constructivism thus focuses on those “norms, patterns of behaviour and shared ideas which shape and shift the actors’ identities, mutual interactions and formations of their collective identities” (ibid.). One of the most important and characteristic features of social constructivism is its emphasis on communicative and discursive practices. It is through them that “agents make sense of the world and attribute meaning to their activities” (Risse 2009, 149). Moreover, as Foucault stresses, discursive practices establish power relationships since they make us “understand certain problems in certain ways, and pose questions accordingly” (Foucault 1991 quoted in Risse 2009, 149). Discourse as such is vital in the constructivist way of perceiving the world. As Drulák (2006, 501) claims: “[o]f paramount importance here is the idea that language is not only a simple mirror of social reality, but a medium of its own, which contributes to the very constitution of social reality.” On that account, the study of political discourse tells us a lot about social structures and institutions, and hence about politics (ibid.).
3.2 Right-wing Populism
Apart from social constructivism, right-wing populism too serves as this thesis’ theoretical cornerstone. According to Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2017, 6), populism as such can be defined as “a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.” Contrary to “thick-centered” or “full” ideologies (e.g., fascism, liberalism, socialism), “thin-centered” ideologies are usually attached to other “ideological elements” (ibid.). As a result, “by itself populism can offer
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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK neither complex nor comprehensive answers to the political questions that modern societies generate”; it can however “take very different shapes,” based on the concepts and ideologies it attaches itself to (ibid.). These can be and often are contradictory, giving populism a chance to appeal to various societies. This definition of populism has three core concepts: the people, the elite, and the general will, which can be explained as follows. “The people” is usually understood as a combination of some or all these three meanings: (1) the people as sovereign (i.e., “the ultimate source of political power”); (2) “the common people” (a broader concept derived from socioeconomic status, specific cultural traditions, and popular values); and (3) the people as the nation (that is, “national community, defined either in civic or in ethnic terms”). In all these cases, the concept of “the people” represents a group which is morally pure. Conversely, “the elite” is frequently portrayed as a corrupt group working against the interests of “the people”; it is mostly defined in reference to power, but in many cases “populists will combine different interpretations of the elite,” such as class or ethnicity. The notion of “the general will” describes common interests of “the people” that populists claim to be advancing, since power should be taken from the political establishment of representative government and restored to “the people” instead (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 9–19). As mentioned above, “the idea of populism as a basic antagonism between ‘the people’ and an elite group is a unifying thread in the literature” (Ron and Nadesan 2020, 5). On the contrary, there are “heated debates” over whether generalizations can be made about “the nature of those people, the characteristics of their grievances, and the relative importance of particular economic and political circumstances” (ibid.). Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2017, 9) themselves note that both “the people” and “the elite” are distinguished and defined in quite a vague manner, often simply ex negativo and on the basis of morality only (similarly also Mudde 2017, under “An Ideational Approach to Populism”). However, this vagueness is one of the factors which enable populists to appear and potentially succeed “in many different places and times but also in different forms” (Taggart 2000, 5). As Laclau (2005 quoted in Howarth 2015, 13) explains, this is because such “empty signifiers” as “the people” are able to unite a variety of social grievances and easily serve as points of subjective identification. As a result, populism occurs as somewhat of a chameleonic concept which gets
15 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
“taken, slightly reshaped, refashioned and polished so that its sheen reflects much better the specifics [of the context it finds itself in]” (Taggart 2000, 6). Despite the term’s recent popularity, populism is not a newly emerged trend. It can be “traced back to the Chartists in early Victorian Britain, the People’s Party in the US, [and] Narodnik revolutionaries in late nineteenth-century Tsarist Russia”; other examples of populism include Fascist movements in the interwar decades or Peronism in Argentina (Norris and Inglehart 2019, 3–4). The “third and current” wave of populism started at the end of the 20th century, with the term “populism” becoming the buzzword of the following decades. This is, in part, a “consequence of its conceptual confusion”: since the early 21st century, the term has often been used, together with “nativism” and “authoritarianism,” to describe many different groups, though mostly the radical right ones (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, chap. 2; Mudde 2019, chap. 2). Radical right parties, like populist ones, have since become “mainstreamed and increasingly normalized,” while extreme right sentiments have emerged and are “openly flirted with in the media and politics” (Mudde 2019, chap. 3). As Mudde (2019, chap. 2) suggests, the two groups can be distinguished based on their different positions on democracy. “Whereas the extreme right rejects the essence of democracy . . . , the (populist) radical right supports democracy, at least in theory, but fundamentally challenges key institutions and values of liberal democracy, including minority rights, rule of law, and separation of powers.” Other authors see the distinction between the two in their willingness to tailor their appeals “in opportunistic ways to maximize the leader’s chances of capturing the government”: while more populist right-wingers are able to do so quite easily, rightist extremist usually cling to their ideology even at the cost of losing potential voters (Weyland 2017, under “‘Precising’ the Strategic Definition to Specify the Extension of European Populism”). Despite these definitions, it can still be challenging to categorize a specific actor simply as a “populist radical right” or an “extreme right” one; there is now a plethora of alternative related terms, such as “far right” and “alt-right,” all of which are parts of the mainstream, and are often used interchangeably (Norris and Inglehart 2019, 215). Similarly, determining where a political actor belongs in terms of the traditional left–right political spectrum can prove to be a demanding task, especially in case of populism. Programmatic appeals of populist
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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK parties and leaders are sometimes ambiguous (possibly intentionally so); and even if they are not, it “does not mean that [they] signify the position of [all] leadership factions, activists, and grassroot members” (ibid., 221) Furthermore, in recent decades, the left–right division has become defined in socio-cultural terms rather than in the previously preferred terms of socio-economic policies. As a result, right now stands for “either authoritarianism (versus the left’s libertarianism) or nationalism (versus the left’s internationalism)” (Mudde 2019, under “Introduction”). In this thesis, the use of the term “right-wing populism” is based on this premise, together with Mudde’s above-mentioned definition of radical right, which he perceives as a preceding form of the more current concept of right-wing populism. The relationship between (right-wing) populism and discourse can be understood in two ways. On the one hand, populism is perceived by some as a “style of rhetoric reflecting first-order principles about who should rule, claiming that legitimate power rests with ‘the people’” (Norris and Inglehart 2019, 4). On the other hand, discourse is seen as a tool used by populists and other politicians to convey their messages to public. This thesis aims to analyse this tool, i.e., the linguistic strategies that “keep right-wing populism alive and kicking”: “the most important discursive strategies, rhetorical tropes and pragmatic devices as well as argumentation schemes employed to express and realize both form and content of right-wing populist ideologies” (Wodak 2015, 47) are all discussed in the following chapters of the thesis.
17 METHODOLOGY
4 Methodology
4.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
As to the method of analysis, this thesis employs critical discourse analysis (CDA). CDA can be described as “an interdisciplinary approach to textual study that aims to explicate abuses of power promoted by those texts, by analyzing linguistic/semiotic details in light of the larger social and political contexts in which those texts circulate” (Huckin, Andrus and Clary-Lemon 2012, 107). It emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a practice of discourse studies developed by Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk, Theo van Leeuwen and Gunther Kress, and has since become one of the most influential and visible branches of the field (Blommaert and Bulcaen 2000, 447). As Wodak (2001, 5) explains, CDA’s predecessor, i.e., critical linguistics (CL), appeared in the 1970s as “a form of discourse and text analysis that recognized the role of language in structuring power relations in society.” Until then, linguistic research was focused on “formal aspects of language which constituted the linguistic competence of speakers” (ibid.), and thus did not regard the circumstances in which language was being used. Similarly, sociolinguistic research at the time concentrated on “language variation, language change and the structures of interaction, with limited attention to issues of social hierarchy and power” (ibid.). Even in cases when the pragmatic approach was utilized and “where the relation between language and text was considered, . . . sentences and components of sentences were still regarded as the basic units” (ibid.). Given these circumstances, the emergence of CL appeared truly innovative, as it aimed to uncover social processes such as manipulation, discrimination, demagogy, and propaganda. Through context examination, its’ goal is also to understand how and why reality is structured in certain way, and possibly react with starting social changes for the better (Wodak 1989, xiv–xv). CDA, which “evolved beyond CL by incorporating more social, cognitive and rhetorical theory, thus broadening the scope of analysis,” is built on the premise that “the way we use language is purposeful, regardless of whether discursive choices are conscious or unconscious” (Huckin, Andrus and Clary-Lemon 2012, 108; Mullet 2018, 116).
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METHODOLOGY
Discursive practices, through which texts are produced and consumed, contribute to the constitution of the social world including social identities and social relations. The aim of CDA is to “shed light on the linguistic-discursive dimension of social and cultural phenomena and processes of change in late modernity” (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 61), taking a particular interest in the relation between language and power (Wodak 2001, 1–2). Research conducted using CDA has therefore covered topics such as mass communication, democracy, politics, racism, nationalism, and identity, as well as the spread of market practices, or pedagogy (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 61). Apart from the plethora of themes that CDA discusses, it also presents a diverse picture on a methodological level. 3 Nevertheless, even within this diversity, all approaches to CDA share a few “landmarks,” the main one being the aim to “make transparent the discursive aspects of societal disparities and inequalities” (Meyer 2001, 30). What precisely is discourse then? The term is often given different meanings, even within CDA itself. It can describe (a) language as an element of the social process; (b) the language associated with a particular social field; or (c) a way of characterizing aspects associated a particular social perspective (Fairclough and Fairclough 2012, 81). In this thesis, Norman Fairclough’s (2001, 16) definition is being utilized, which essentially describes discourse as using “language as a form of social practice” in both speech and writing.4 This definition implies that there is a “relationship between a particular discursive event and situation(s), institution(s) and social structure(s) which frame it: the discursive event is shaped by them, but it also shapes them” (Wodak 1996 quoted in Titscher et al. 2000, 26). Considering the influence that discourse can have on social status quo, it may also have major power and ideological effects, such as producing and consolidating unequal power relations between different social groups (e.g., men and women, social groups and classes, or national, ethnic, religious, sexual, political, cultural and
3 As Blommaert and Bulcaen (2000, 450) mention, “the use of systemic-functional linguistics is prominent, but categories and concepts have also been borrowed from more mainstream discourse analysis and text linguistics, stylistics, social semiotics, social cognition, rhetoric, and, more recently, conversation analysis.” 4 Policies, narratives, letters, textbooks, conversations, speeches, meetings or classroom lessons, nonverbal communication, visual images, multimedia, and film ‒ all of these are examples of forms and genres discourse can take (Mullet 2018, 119).
19 METHODOLOGY subcultural majorities and minorities (Titscher et al. 2000, 164; Wodak et al. 1999, 8).
4.1.1 Discursive-Histocial Approach (DHA) As mentioned above, CDA offers a variety of approaches to use when conducting critical sociolinguistic research. With an eye on this thesis’ research question, the discourse-historical approach (DHA) as presented by one of its pioneers, Ruth Wodak, was selected and will be used to analyse speeches of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage. DHA is one of the most prominent critical approaches to the study of discourse, based on interdisciplinarity, multi-method research and on using a variety of different empirical data as well as background information (Reisigl 2018, 44; Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 35). Depending on the respective object of investigation, DHA attempts to include the historical, political, sociological and/or psychological dimension in the analysis of a specific discursive occasion (Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 35). The approach “distinguishes between three dimensions which constitute textual meanings and structures” (Wodak 2009, 38). Firstly, it establishes the contents or topics which are spoken or written about, i.e., analyses the macro-topics of a discursive event (ibid.; Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 44). The aim of this level of analysis is to map out the contents and then to assign them to particular discourses. For this purpose, discourse topics are used as analytical categories to summarize the text and specify its most important information (Van Dijk 1991 quoted in Wodak 2015, 50–51). Secondly, the discursive strategies employed (both consciously or subconsciously) are investigated. The strategies refer to plans of practices adopted to achieve a particular social, political, psychological, or linguistic goal; such plans may be “more or less accurate and more or less intentional” (Wodak 2009, 40). Variations of the Aristotelian concept of topos are employed to realize specific strategies and produce successful speeches; Kienpointer (2011, 265) describes topoi as “search formulas which tell [one] how and where to look for arguments. At the same time, topoi are warrants which guarantee the transition from argument to conclusion.” However, these warrants can also become fallacious and manipulative when used in wrong contexts (Wodak 2015, 52). Thirdly, DHA examines the linguistic means (i.e., tokens) and the specific, context-dependent linguistic realizations (also called types) used
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METHODOLOGY
in specific discourse to realize both topics and strategies (Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 44). The interdisciplinarity of DHA and its attention to context5 were the reasons for selecting this approach as the main method of analysis in this thesis as they allow going beyond the samples’ utterances as such by contextualizing them. In fact, contextualization is what the label “historical” rather describes, since not all analyses carried out within the framework of the DHA show a clear historical orientation (Reisigl 2018, 44), but they do generally view the findings in terms of their situatedness (Wodak 2015, 51). Accordingly, this thesis includes short contextualizing chapters dedicated to right-wing populism, to the introduction of the selected politicians and their programmes, as well as to the positions of the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom in the EU.
4.2 Case Selection
The topic and the research question of this thesis are based on the discussions of whether or not more withdrawals from the European Union might be expected after Brexit, especially in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Bearing in mind the recent withdrawal of the UK from the EU, this thesis aims to compare the discourses of right-wing populist politicians in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, focusing on their views of their countries’ memberships and then-/potential withdrawal from the organisation. As elaborated on below, the selection of these particular countries has been motivated chiefly by their shared unenthusiastic relationship with the EU. Generally, the attitudes of individual member states towards the EU differ and are determined by their history, political establishments, socio-economic factors, current events, and other aspects. However, between 2008 and 2018, “political parties [across the EU] opposed to EU
5 DHA distinguishes among four dimensions of context: (1) the immediate, language internal co-text and co-discourse (e.g., connotations and presuppositions); (2) the intertextual and interdiscursive relationship between utterances, texts, genres etc.; (3) social factors and institutional frames of a specific context of situation, such as degree of formality, place, time, addressees, interactive and political roles, level of education, ethnic identities; and (4) the broader socio-political and historical context (Reisigl 2018, 53).
21 METHODOLOGY integration have almost doubled their votes. The general opinion of the EU has also deteriorated, revealing a growing number of people who distrust the Union” (Dijkstra, Poelman and Rodríguez-Pose 2018, under “Executive Summary”). This trend has been reflected in the case of the Czech Republic, which entered the EU in 2004 intending to “become a full-fledged member of the Union,” to “accede as quickly as possible to the Schengen area and the eurozone, and to get rid of limitations on the free movement of workers” (Bartovic 2016, 45–46). The country has since benefited from the membership both economically and politically; nevertheless, it is still “among those [countries] that are lukewarm towards European integration” (ibid., 45). After 15 years of its membership, the Czech Republic exhibited the highest level of support for leaving the organisation among the EU countries (apart from the UK), with 34 per cent being more inclined to leaving the EU (Stone 2019). As Hloušek and Kaniok (2020, 1–2) explain, “‘new’ EU members with a post-communist background . . . often adopt a rather critical approach to various important EU policies and activities, such as the Euro currency and migration.” The authors also warn that “Euroscepticism has generally become bolder in the party systems of the ‘new’ member states” (ibid., 2).6 Even though the United Kingdom does not belong to the group of the newer member states of the EU, the reserved relations with the European Union are something that the country shares with the Czech Republic. The UK joined the union’s predecessor, the European Economic Community in 1973, and later earned the label of “an awkward partner” – not only due to its later arrival, but mainly because of its hesitant and transactional approach to membership, numerous opt-out requests, public and media debate defined by Euroscepticism, or its commitment to a “special relationship” with the US (Oliver 2018, chap. 2). After all, a referendum was held in Britain in 1975 asking voters whether they wanted to stay in the European Community. Although the people voted to stay and “public support for EC membership seemed commanding, it is important to keep it in perspective”: the support was
6 It is important to note that simultaneously, Euroscepticism is considered to be “closely related” with populism (Rooduijn and van Kessel 2021, under “Summary”), as populist organisations and parties traditionally voice their opposition both to the EU and the broader process of European integration on the basis of “a composite series of arguments” (Pirro and Taggart 2018, 254).
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“unequivocal but it was also unenthusiastic” (Clarke, Goodwin and Whiteley 2017, 1; Butler and Kitzinger 1996, 280). This lack of enthusiasm came to light in 2016 when the British voted in another referendum that the UK should leave the European Union, making it the first member state in history to withdraw from the organisation. Regarding the criteria for the selection of specific politicians, Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage were picked for their right-wing populist inclinations and for being some of the most visible and vocal critics of the European Union, as well as advocates of the EU withdrawal, in their respective countries. Furthermore, both politicians are or were, at some points, the most prominent figures of their parties and they were also involved in establishing them. The political career of Tomio Okamura began in 2012 with his candidacy to the Czech Senate. The entrepreneur’s campaign was built upon dissatisfaction with the current political situation and upon anti-establishment appeals (Svačinová 2018a, 149). Okamura was elected in the second round but announced his intention to run for president in the first direct presidential election only a month later. Nevertheless, his presidential bid was declared invalid by the Czech Ministry of the Interior, which was interpreted by Okamura as an intervention of a corrupt political system against the will of the people (ibid., 150). Okamura’s subsequent fight against the decision significantly raised his profile and might have inspired his decision to establish his first political party, Úsvit přímé demokracie7 (Dawn of Direct Democracy, ÚPD) in 2013. ÚPD “gradually began to adopt extreme right rhetoric, particularly with respect to immigrants and Roma; nonetheless, the party has been relatively vague on a broad range of topics” (Mareš and Havlík 2016, 328). After an internal divide, which occurred shortly after the party entered the Chamber of Deputies and which Okamura describes as “a political coup” (Tomio.cz 2020), Okamura left ÚPD and co-founded a new party, Svoboda a přímá demokracie (Freedom and Direct Democracy, SPD) in 2015. As the names of both his parties suggest, the catchwords put forward by Okamura are mainly related to democracy. The politician believes that a “weak and corrupt representative democracy should be replaced with a direct democracy: the people shall take decisions in
7 Initially named Úsvit přímé demokracie Tomia Okamury, the founder’s name was later dropped from the name of the party.
23 METHODOLOGY referenda, politicians have to be directly responsible to the people, i.e., the people shall have the right to recall politicians (Brunclík and Kubát 2014, 172). Okamura’s calls for referenda also manifest themselves in the program of the party, together with “pronounced Euroscepticism” (Svačinová 2018b, 201–202). In contrast to ÚPD, SPD campaigns for referenda on “every transfer of state sovereignty to the EU institutions and on leaving the EU” (SPD.cz 2020). Amplified by the party’s strong opposition to immigration, these calls became particularly vocal with the 2015 outbreak of the so-called refugee crisis, which was, according to SPD, mishandled and in part caused by the EU. Okamura is very active on multiple online platforms where he shares his opinions about current events and communicates with his supporters. At the time of writing this thesis, Okamura’s Facebook page had almost 270,000 fans, making him the most popular Czech politician on the social network; the SPD leader also frequently uses Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, and occasionally posts on his personal blog. Nigel Farage entered politics in his teenage years when he became a member of the Conservative Party. Yet, he left the party in 1992 in protest at the signing of the Maastricht Treaty (D’Arcy 2019) and became a member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) instead. Formed as the Anti-Federalist League in 1991 and renamed in 1993, the party’s founders “felt intensely anxious about Britain’s integration into the EU – or what many saw as an undemocratic superstate that posed a fundamental threat to British sovereignty” (Goodwin and Milazzo 2015, 2). After several intra-party conflicts and an initial lack of success, UKIP managed to secure three seats in the 1999 European Parliament elections, one of them for Farage, who then remained a member of the EP for more than two decades (Ford and Goodwin 2014, chap. 1). Despite the accomplishment, it still took several more years before UKIP started receiving more widespread attention. This happened once Farage was elected leader of the party in 2006 and then re-elected again in 2010. It was also to UKIP’s advantage that it moved from being a single-issue party and started campaigning against government plans to develop wind turbines, legalize same-sex marriage, and ban smoking in pubs, and in favour of a significant increase in spending on defense and the British armed forces (Oliver 2018, chap. 3; Flamini 2013, 36). All these factors broadened UKIP’s appeal – but the party’s anti-EU position remained its biggest selling point (Flamini 2013, 37).
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UKIP’s “forthright Euroscepticism, anti-immigration line, commitment to more traditional political values, and mix of British and English nationalism” attracted a number of Conservative voters, which manifested itself in the 2014 European Parliament elections where UKIP earned more seats than any other British party (Oliver 2018, chap. 3). Its threat to steal more Eurosceptic voters “emboldened the Conservative Party’s anti-European wing” and pushed David Cameron, the leader of the party, to promise a nationwide referendum on Britain’s EU membership (Kirchick 2017, 155). Leading up to the vote, Nigel Farage lent his support to one of the alternative Leave groups, the Leave.EU. Reflecting its UKIP connections, “Leave.EU played heavily on immigration and a message that Britain should ‘take back control’ of both its laws and borders” (Oliver 2018, chap. 3). Shortly after the Brexit plebiscite, Farage resigned from his position as the UKIP leader, stating that after his country, he now wanted his life back (BBC 2016). Two years later, he left the party altogether as its leadership had become “pretty obsessed with the issue of Islam, not just Islamic extremism, but Islam, and UKIP wasn’t founded to be a party fighting a religious crusade” (BBC 2018). A new political project of Farage’s, the Brexit Party, was launched in 2019; upon the UK finally leaving the EU, the party was re-registered as Reform UK. In March 2021, Nigel Farage announced he was quitting politics, but planned to continue with his media career (Stubley 2021). He is currently active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube,8 and his blog where he comments on current affairs. 9
4.3 Sample Selection
This thesis analyses 20 speeches made by Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage each, that is, 40 speeches altogether. For each of the politicians, the selected speeches come from a different period: in Okamura’s case,
8 As of February and March 2021, the Twitter account of Nigel Farage is the fourth most followed political account in the UK, while his Facebook page comes second in number of likes in the same category (Clark 2021; Tankovska 2021). On his personal YouTube channel, Farage now has over 268,000 subscribers. 9 In the past, Farage also hosted a radio talk show and a podcast; he has been contributing to the American television network Fox News since 2017 as well.
25 METHODOLOGY years 2015 (foundation of the Svoboda a přímá demokracie party) to 2021 (time of writing this thesis) were chosen due to his increased focus on the topics of the European Union and the withdrawal of the Czech Republic from it. Nigel Farage’s selected speeches come from years 2010 (Farage’s re-election as the leader of UKIP) to 2016 (announcement of the United Kingdom EU membership referendum). These particular timespans were also selected with the intention of them covering equally long time periods in each of the politicians’ cases. Video recordings of Tomio Okamura’s speeches were obtained from his official Facebook profile and YouTube channel, as well as from his second YouTube channel which was created after the original one was deleted.10 When selecting Nigel Farage’s speeches, UKIP’s official channel as well as alternative YouTube channels such as “voteleavemedia” or “Brexit Party MEPs” were used since Farage has only been active on his official personal channel since April 2019. Additionally, one of the selected videos is published on a media outlet website. Neither of the politicians publishes any additional speeches on their official websites. The main criterion used in the sample selection was the relevancy of the discussed topics. For the purposes of this thesis, only those speeches which were dedicated, at least partially, to the European Union were considered relevant. Additionally, EU-related keywords and topics such as the following were sought: membership in the EU, liabilities of EU membership, withdrawal from the EU (Brexit, Czexit), EU’s shortcomings, Brussels, the European Commission, the Schengen Area, the eurozone etc. Two to four speeches were analysed per politician per year. An effort was made to cover the examined periods evenly, ideally finding three relevant samples per year per person (i.e., one sample per four
10 In July 2020, YouTube deleted Okamura’s original official YouTube channel. According to the politician, the social network did so because he “repeatedly published videos which showed violent and criminal acts of migrants in Western Europe, and of ‘fighters against racism’ of the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA” (Augusta 2020). Okamura described the step as an act of censorship and an “attack on freedom of speech, attack on basic civil liberties given by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and [as] a violation of the free competition of political parties given by the constitutional order of the Czech Republic” (ibid.). Two months after Okamura appealed and created a new channel, YouTube recovered the deleted one, and returned it to the politician, except for two deleted videos which broke the rules of the network (Klímová and Endrštová 2020).
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METHODOLOGY months per person); however, given the fact that relevant recordings were often published in an irregular manner, this was not always possible. Thus, intervals between the publication dates of the videos analysed in this thesis vary slightly (see Tables 1 and 2).
27 METHODOLOGY
Table 1. Analysed speeches of Tomio Okamura
Tomio Okamura Date of publication Title Source(s) Length Reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V 2015-06-05 Konec Evropy začíná 2:43 2015a 3ZU0beR9Ms Tomio Okamura: Evropská unie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i 2015-08-10 1:37 2015b zase perlí Q-7V2y70_4 Tomio Okamura: Drzost Evropské https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E 2015-09-10 3:53 2015c komise nezná mezí IXrQCwTNUM Tomio Okamura: Projev na https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P 2016-01-29 konferenci v Miláně s Marine Le 5:15 2016a s_tXn7nnzc Pen a Geertem Wildersem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e 2016-03-21 Tomio Okamura: Evropské lži 4:26 2016b 4HPjMd4LSw Tomio Okamura: Kulisy spadly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0 2016-04-07 žádáme okamžité vystoupení ČR z 5:27 2016c SUkXaJCh8c Evropské unie Tomio Okamura: Hrozba https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a 2016-12-31 1:23 2016d islámského teroru kfAn5rcpVA Tomio Okamura: Odkladiště https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j 2017-03-08 1:43 2017a nekvalitních potravin gL-8iHI9Sk Tomio Okamura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v 2017-03-13 2:02 2017b Protidemokratický styl diktátu EU u7JUGDhf98 Tomio Okamura: Vydírání není https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v 2017-12-27 1:15 2017c dialog J3VpKUA11c Tomio Okamura: NE dotačnímu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I 2018-01-22 1:16 2018a přerozdělování p3V19UYMm0 Tomio Okamura: Šikana slušných https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 2018-05-25 1:28 2018b lidí WGtbY4zVJxc Tomio Okamura: EU je https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e 2018-09-06 0:59 2018c nereformovatelná Q0lHxbRpLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6 2019-01-03 Tomio Okamura: ODS je pro EU 3:46 2019a lPPUqBlg74 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v 2019-10-28 Náš Den nezávislosti 3:02 2019b =534459927123725 Velká Británie se stane od zítra https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v 2020-01-31 znovu svobodnou a suverénní 3:13 2020a =197880154692567 zemí SPD navrhlo referendum o https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v 2020-04-21 5:18 2020b vystoupení z EU =581165226088735 EU chce omezit myslivce, střelce a https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v 2020-06-03 6:11 2020c další legální držitele zbraní =594016291218281 Tomio Okamura: Dnešní aktuality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9 2021-01-04 9:55 2021a 4.1.2021 1qvMoo6tlg Tomio Okamura: Dnešní aktuality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=- 2021-02-10 16:32 2021b 10.2.2021 C8hOPZ6CRo
Source: Table by the author.
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Table 2. Analysed speeches of Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage Date of Title Source(s) Length Reference publication Illegal bailouts and treaty change lead to 2010-12-15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcDOslLJwp8 2:52 2010a referendums - Nigel Farage 2011-01-03 An Evening with Nigel Farage (PART 1 of 3); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhXkeC-gN6g 27:38 (speech took An Evening with Nigel Farage (PART 2 of 3); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za1hI4OyD3A 2010b place in Dec in total An Evening with Nigel Farage (PART 3 of 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlKSUYg8LjU 2010) UKIP Nigel Farage - European Union and 2011-01-19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS9BG42fNU0 1:27 2011a Soviet Union are one of the same - Jan 2011 UKIP Nigel Farage - Spring Conference 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYqjTn_cOG8 2011-03-06 14:34 2011b speech Nigel Farage in Eastbourne Part 1; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47lAnNiUdmA 16:45 in 2011-09-10 Nigel Farage keynote speech, Eastbourne Pt 2011c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1EMOIXgsHg total 2 UKIP leader Nigel Farage - EU Titanic has hit 2012-05-10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNeiRvoGac0 3:01 2012a the iceberg May 2012 UKIP Nigel Farage - Break up the euro and 2012-05-23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fi6w1C7uMs 4:45 2012b restore human dignity - 22nd May 2012 UKIP Conference 2012 - NIGEL FARAGE 2012-09-23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOONG_9mUoE 18:32 2012c leader Full Conference Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW64w9nLrq 2012-12-30 UKIP - Nigel Farage New Year Message 2013 6:14 2012d A UKIP Nigel Farage - Democracy and Self- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrEIXaf-Um0 2013-01-16 Government now Staging a Fightback - Jan 3:04 2013a
2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAR0bOdY1m Nigel Farage addresss the UKIP 2013 Spring 2013-03-24 U 24:49 2013b Conference in Exeter
Nigel Farage: Europe Hijacked by the EU 2013-05-08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB__xRA0hJs 5:41 2013c Project UKIP Nigel Farage, The hand that rocked the 2014-01-16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQDIl0RfCgs 2:35 2014a cradle of democracy - Jan 2014 Nigel Farage MEP, the UKIP Leader at a 2014-03-05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH8FmnveiOc 23:37 2014b packed public meeting in Torquay Nigel Farage: The European Dream is 2014-03-12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4FdbIVa2j0 03:47 2014c Crumbling UKIP Nigel Farage - Treating democracy 2014-07-15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQzC5Y8Duzk 5:39 2014d with deliberate contempt July 2014 UKIP leader Nigel Farage's full speech to https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics- 2015-09-25 27:19 2015a conference 34361111 Nigel Farage attacks EU project and Angela https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1RhpBZpTU 2015-10-10 3:45 2015b Merkel 07 Oct 15 k UKIP Leader Nigel Farage - People power https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axARoaVWod 2016-02-07 4:42 2016a will win Referendum, Feb 2016 w 2016-02-27 Nigel Farage - Llandudno 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pehGu7dp1tw 29:01 2016b
Source: Table by the author.
29 ANALYSIS
5 Analysis
5.1 Discourse-Historical Analysis of Tomio Okamura’s Selected Speeches
Bearing in mind the previously mentioned definitions of right-wing populism, Tomio Okamura’s discourse appears to be a fitting representation of the phenomenon. In his speeches, the three core concepts of Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser’s (2017, 6) definition of right- wing populism are realized as follows. In Okamura’s discourse, the society is divided into two groups: Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser’s morally uncorrupt people are, in Okamura’s words, represented by “decent people” (Okamura 2021b), while the characteristics of the untrustworthy elites are usually assigned to “buck-passing” traditional politicians, the “harmful” and “hypocritical” European Union, “lunatic” non-profit organisations and mainstream media seen as biased (Okamura 2015a, 2020b, 2021b). All of these actors either lie to and/or disempower the people – most often the ordinary Czechs, Europeans, or citizens of the Visegrad Group, depending on the context of a particular speech. The volonté generale is frequently summarized by overarching terms such as “sovereignty” (Okamura 2016c), “freedom” (Okamura 2018b), and “safety” (Okamura 2020a), with Okamura grounding these concepts in specific parts of the Czech history, the legacies of important Czech historical figures and ancestors (see Subsection 5.1.3 for specific examples), as well as in the Czech citizenship and patriotism, common cultural foundations of both the Czech Republic and Europe, and also the Czech and the Judeo-Christian traditions.11 At the same time, it appears that Okamura’s understanding of citizenship and patriotism is not defined entirely by ethnonationalist criteria, and therefore is not limited to people of certain race or religion – that is, apart from the Muslims and especially Muslim immigrants, who are always described as dangerous and unwished for by Okamura (2015a; similarly also Svačinová 2018b,
11 According to SPD, Czech traditions are based on Judaic, classical, and Christian culture, and are the foundation of democracy, liberty, and human rights (Svačinová 2018b, 203).
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203–205). Still, “decent” and/or working people (Okamura 2021b) who share the same values and culture as Okamura’s “us” can too be patriotic citizens no matter their origin (ibid.).12 According to Okamura’s worldview, there are several groups constituting the above-mentioned corrupt elite, trying to sabotage the people and their interests defended by Okamura. On the domestic scene, it is first and foremost the established political parties, meaning both the ruling ones as well as the opposition. Since all these parties oppose letting “our citizens themselves decide about their future in their country” (Okamura 2018a), preferably in referenda, Okamura can easily distance himself from the “hypocritical” elite and position himself and his party as the only truly democratic advocates of the people. Parties which “accept the EU’s dictate” (Okamura 2018c), such as the “Europhile ODS” (Okamura 2019a) are also vigorously criticised. By contrast, Okamura is very fond of the Czech president Miloš Zeman and approves of his positive stances towards Russia and China (Okamura 2015b). Apart from the political establishment, the SPD leader often warns against trusting some mainstream media which he describes as “mendacious” and “sell-out,” claiming that “he who pays the piper calls the tune” (Okamura 2015a, 2016b). “Political” and “ideological” non-profit organisations and “activists” are commented on disapprovingly for being financed by the EU “from various funds” as well (Okamura 2021b; Svačinová 2018b, 210). The general will of the Czech citizens is also jeopardized from abroad by the EU and the NATO, as well as Islam and immigration, which are perceived as threats to the sovereignty and the very survival of the Czech Republic, and are thus used by Okamura and his party to support their calls for a referendum on leaving the EU.13 The following subsections further explore Okamura’s Euroscepticism and the reasoning(s) behind his opinions on the potential withdrawal of the Czech Republic from the EU, using Ruth Wodak’s DHA as described in Chapter 4. The first subsection covers the
12 In one of the analysed videos, Okamura suggests that instead of “economic immigrants” we should only accept the “indigenous inhabitants of European countries who are beginning to flee from the Western Europe to us” (Okamura 2016b). 13 SPD’s negative stance towards the NATO is not as elaborate as the one regarding the EU; however, there should also be a referendum regarding the Czech membership in the organisation, according to the party (Svačinová 2018b, 207).
31 ANALYSIS contents or discourse topics most frequently used in Okamura’s selected speeches. The second subsection is then dedicated to the discursive strategies and topoi that Okamura utilizes in his speeches. In the last subsection, specific linguistic means and realizations are mapped.
5.1.1 Contents and Discourse Topics As mentioned, this section deals with the first dimension of the DHA, i.e., the main discourse topics of Tomio Okamura’s speeches. These topics “conceptually, summarize the text, and specify its most important information” (Van Dijk 1991 quoted in Wodak 2015, 50–51). For the purposes of this part of the analysis, ca. eight major topics were identified, based on the topics listed in the works of Barbora Kostúrová (2020, 31–59) and Ruth Wodak (2015, 49), as well as on the frequently recurring contents of the examined videos. In Okamura’s case, multiple topics usually appeared per one video, depending on the length and format of the speech. It is worth noting that apart from being switched often, discourse topics can also overlap, have multiple subtopics, and spill over into other levels of DHA, since the levels are intertwined and should be understood as such, rather than completely isolated categories. With that being said, the following pages present three most prevalent topics of Tomio Okamura’s speeches, which are the following: (1) the EU as an oppressive regime; (2) the EU’s incapability to react; and (3) alternative to EU membership.
The European Union as an oppressive regime
When discussing the EU, the Czech Republic’s membership in the organisation, and/or the possibility of the country’s withdrawal from it, the theme of oppression is unquestionably the most frequently used topic. It encompasses subtopics which are often reflective of current events (such as the refugee crisis, the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty or the spread of fake news) and the EU’s reactions to these events which Okamura often finds oppressive and discriminatory. This is demonstrated, for instance, in Okamura’s vocal criticism of all planned European relocation schemes for asylum seekers, as the following excerpt shows:
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(1) Brussels and its anti-democratic style of dictating sovereign nations and democratic countries serves as a prime example of discrimination against smaller and especially eastern countries: from the discrimination in food quality to dictation of quotas on illegal colonists. . . . European Commissioner Věra Jourová betrays the interests of majority of Czech citizens in the long run as she is a supporter of admission of migrants. (Okamura 2017b)
Regarding this and other issues, Okamura regularly describes the EU’s policies as “suppression of democracy,” “censorship,” restrictions of personal freedom and the freedom of expression, or “game of nation states’ existence” (Okamura 2016a, 2016b, 2020a, 2021b). Moreover, Okamura recurrently expresses his disapproval of the current design of the EU and of various policies proposed or accepted in the EU bodies, such as the above-mentioned relocation schemes for asylum seekers or programs aimed at combating online disinformation (Okamura 2016b, 2021b). Sometimes also summarized as “the EU’s dictate” (Okamura 2018c), Okamura claims that such policies are “unacceptable for SPD” (Okamura 2021b), employing a subtopic which can be described as zero tolerance. The following quote demonstrates this well:
(2) Majority of Czech parliamentary parties . . . surrendered to the EU’s dictate and put a law implementing a European directive restricting the right to legally possess weapons on the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies, which effectively means the directive’s approval. The SPD Movement rejects this. SPD is the only political party which rejects the dictate of the EU without passing the buck. (Okamura 2018c)
The European Union’s incapability to react
Through this discourse topic, Tomio Okamura often expresses his disdain for the EU and what he sees as the Union’s failures. Okamura criticises the EU for being “irreformable” (Okamura 2018c, 2019a); he also claims that “because of the toothless and bureaucratised EU, Europe has lost its drive and the ability to act” during the refugee crisis (Okamura 2015a). His speech at the 2016 conference of the Eurosceptic ENF group is a case in point:
33 ANALYSIS
(3) It is [a] great joy to meet you, other people who have common sense and even [the] courage to say it out loud – so obvious truths that [the] king is naked or even [that] the Islamist immigrants are the problem; or [that] the European Union utterly failed and leads us to hell. (Okamura 2016a)
As indicated, Okamura often presents the EU as an entity incompetent to deal with threats – that is, another omnipresent subtopic of Okamura’s discourse. The subtopic of threat is remarkably consistent in the sense that it always focuses on two phenomena only. Migration and Islam, usually combined, are presented by Okamura as the most imminent danger to Europe (including, of course, the Czech Republic) and its citizens. Okamura does not distinguish between moderate and radical Islam and describes all Muslims as “barbarians” who endanger security and “traditional values” of European nations as well as the entire “European civilization” (Okamura 2015a, 2016b). Refugees from war-torn zones are described as “economic” and “illegal immigrants” which are “lured” by the EU and come in “millions,” “waves,” or “floods” to exploit the “generous social welfare systems” of Western European countries (Okamura 2015a, 2015c, 2016b). Brussels, in turn, is said to have been lying to European citizens, promoting the “soulless uniformity o[f] consumer multiculture,” as shown by the following quote (Okamura 2016b):
(4) They told us that Europe is going extinct and that, allegedly, that is why we need, instead of pro-natal policies of our own governments, the raids of millions of barbarians who will not ask our women how many children they want or how many times they want to be raped. . . . They said that immigrants were going to raise money for the ageing Europe’s pension. Well, honestly, I have not heard a better joke in a long time. (Okamura 2016b)
The alleged inability of the EU to protect the Czechs as well as other nations from immigration is not the only reason why Okamura criticises the organisation and requests the Czech Republic to withdraw therefrom. Besides this, the Union is also blamed for issues such as dual food quality, sanctions against Russia or delays in the Covid-19 vaccine deliveries (Okamura 2016d, 2017a, 2020b, 2021a). Furthermore,
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Okamura’s criticisms often get noticeably personal as the EU’s representatives (such as Jean-Claude Juncker, Ursula von der Leyen, or Věra Jourová) are blamed for real as well as potential misfortunes of the Czech Republic and its citizens (Okamura 2016d, 2021a), as evident from the following example:
(5) The latest statement of the President of the European Commission, Juncker, that [the EC] will not change its immigration policy is a clear reason for a referendum on withdrawal of the Czech Republic from the EU. The EU’s immigration policy equals the end of the Czech state and the Czech nation. It equals the threat of Islamic terror; it equals a threat for freedom and democracy. (Okamura 2016d)
Alternative to membership in the European Union
The previous two discourse topics are usually used by Okamura to describe the EU in a negative manner, by which the politician paves the way for his next topic, i.e., offering an alternative to the EU membership. Through this discourse topic, Okamura further emphasizes and promotes the stances and visions of his and his fellow party members’, presenting them as the best alternative to EU membership and using the subtopics of freedom, sovereignty, law, and democracy to do so (e.g., Okamura 2016d, 2017c, 2019b, 2020a, 2021b). Juxtaposition with other parties (for instance, the above-mentioned ODS) and politicians (such as Jan Zahradil, an ODS member of the European Parliament, or Petr Fiala, the chairman of the same party) is often employed to accentuate differing opinions on various issues relating to the EU, such as the Euro, immigration, and decision-making, which make SPD and Tomio Okamura unique and special in comparison to traditional politicians. The following quote illustrates this nicely:
(6) Unlike ODS, we do not ever want to adopt the Euro, because that way, the Czech Republic would lose an effective economic tool of sovereign monetary policy . . . Unlike ODS, we do not want illegal migrants and terrorists crossing our borders. We want the cooperation of sovereign European states without Brussel’s bureaucratic dominance. . . . In SPD, we want a fundamental change . . . (Okamura 2019a)
35 ANALYSIS
To Okamura and the rest of his party, this “fundamental change” (Okamura 2019a) means holding a referendum on the Czech membership in the EU and, ideally, voting to withdraw from the Union (Okamura 2016c, 2016d, 2018a, 2020b, 2020c). Only this way, i.e., through “Czexit” (Okamura 2021a), the Czech citizens will be able to “decide themselves about the future in their country” (Okamura 2018a). However, even though the SPD leader presents a myriad of reasons as to why the Czech Republic should leave the EU, he does not accompany them with specific information about his plans for the potential post-Czexit future. Instead, it is presented simply as a future without the dictate of the EU. In order to achieve this objective and such a future, the audience is recurrently urged by Okamura to unite in the fight against the corrupt elite. Not only does Okamura encourage the collective action of his sympathisers to support his party in general elections to accomplish this objective, he also motivates them to share “concealed information on social media and support independent sources” (Okamura 2015a) since mainstream media cannot be considered objective. Moreover, Okamura pleads for the unity of fellow Eurosceptic politicians (Okamura 2016a), as well as of the V4 member states to ensure more attention is paid to them at European level; in his opinion, the EU “demonstrates that the V4 countries are subordinate colonies deprived of legal capacity” (Okamura 2017c). Accordingly, Okamura condemns other Czech parliamentary parties and their representatives for being hypocritical, e.g., for not supporting SPD’s bill on referenda despite having promised that “they would back some sort of a referendum act” before the last general election (Okamura 2020a). In one of his speeches in the Chamber of Deputies, Okamura states that he “propose[s] for the fourteenth time to include an extraordinary item on the agenda of the Chamber’s meeting, and that is calling a referendum on withdrawal from the EU” (Okamura 2020b), adding later that the government “will no doubt reject the proposal for citizens to make their own democratic decisions” (ibid.). Likewise, the EU is criticised by Okamura for basing its provisions on “fabricated pretext[s]” (Okamura 2018b) and lying to its citizens, as illustrated in the following quote:
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ANALYSIS
(7) I think we should all face the truth and abandon the untrue and artificial myths about some economic advantage of the European Union. According to the estimates of the Confederation of Industry and Trade,14 we lost about CZK 1 trillion just [because of] the sanctions against Russia. . . . And if someone dares to mention some subsidies, then tell the truth that we have to participate on the projects with our own money . . . (Okamura 2020b)
5.1.2 Discursive Strategies and Topoi In this section, discursive strategies repeatedly employed by Tomio Okamura in his discourse on the topic of the EU withdrawal are examined, along with topoi used by him to realize such strategies. To attain this section’s objective, strategies and topoi typical for right-wing discourse are applied as introduced in one of Ruth Wodak’s (2015, 53) publications (see Appendices A and B for complete lists). Similarly to discourse topics, multiple discursive strategies and topoi appear in each of Okamura’s analysed videos; more specifically, it is ca. six strategies as well as six topoi per one video. However, with regards to the length requirements for this thesis, only four most prominent discursive strategies and topoi are elaborated on below. Tomio Okamura bases his speeches mostly on the following four discursive strategies: (1) positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation; (2) dramatization and exaggeration; (3) scapegoating; and (4) conspiracy theories. Along with the strategies, these topoi are used to convey the speaker’s messages: (1) topos of danger or threat; (2) topos of uselessness or disadvantage; (3) topos of burden or weighing down; and (4) topos of people.
Discursive strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation
Presenting oneself in a positive way and others in a negative one is a strategy that Tomio Okamura uses in all of his speeches regarding the
14 There is no “Confederation of Industry and Trade” in the Czech Republic. In the quote, Tomio Okamura might have intended to reference either the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, or the Czech Chamber of Commerce.
37 ANALYSIS
EU as such. Likewise, the similar strategies of victim-perpetrator reversal and shifting the blame were quite frequent. Okamura often expresses his approval, praise, or support to sovereign states (Okamura 2017c), patriots (Okamura 2016a), and “us,” meaning the Czech Republic (Okamura 2015c), Czechs (Okamura 2019b), SPD, and its supporters (Okamura 2019a), or a further non-defined entity (Okamura 2015b, 2019b). These are then contrasted with the criticised counterparts and their actions (or lack thereof). Such counterparts include a majority of Czech politicians and parties endorsing the EU and its “dictate” (Okamura 2018c), while ignoring the problems the Czech Republic is facing, such as illegal immigration (Okamura 2016b); the EU, its bodies, and their policies (Okamura 2017b), as well as Muslims grouped together with “migrants” (Okamura 2016b) are all presented in a bad light, too. The following quote serves as an example of this strategy:
(8) Dear fellow citizens, dear friends, I wish you and our country all the best for our republic’s holiday. We [are celebrating] the anniversary of the establishment of the Czechs’ and Slovaks’ independent state. Together with us, this holiday will be commemorated by those who have been striving for years to make the independence of our country a thing of the past. (Okamura 2019b)
Discursive strategies of dramatization and exaggeration
Often employed together with the strategies of creating fear and conspiracy theories, dramatization and exaggeration are mostly used to paint a picture of dangerous external enemies (Okamura 2016b), and/or incompetent but still vicious elites (Okamura 2015c, 2021b). The topoi of numbers, urgency, (internal) danger or threat, and uselessness or disadvantage are of help here. Okamura sometimes mocks the EU as it “must have gone crazy” (Okamura 2015c) and created “monstrous travesties” (Okamura 2017b). On another occasion, Okamura blames the Union for its alleged attempts at “censorship” and suspects it desires to create a “dictatorship” (Okamura 2021b). Muslim immigrants are assigned the role of “terrorists” (Okamura 2019a) who are coming to take advantage of the European countries’ welfare systems, and cause “explosions and raids in France, Belgium, Germany et cetera” (Okamura 2016b). Okamura also expresses his belief that “the concept of a single European Union is showing its helplessness
38
ANALYSIS stripped bare” (Okamura 2015a), and estimates that “if the current trend continues, many European countries will be mostly Muslim around 2050” (ibid.). As suggested above, according to Okamura, this is a major threat that the EU is failing to deal with, and thus one of the key reasons why the Czechs should hold a referendum on the country’s withdrawal from the Union, as is the perceived threat of the EU’s dictatorship.
Discursive strategy of scapegoating
The discursive strategy of scapegoating can be characterised as choosing a culprit which is then blamed for various complex developments and current woes (Wodak 2015, 3–4; Pelinka 2013, 8). Since right-wing populists often aim to “offer simple and clear-cut answers” to voters’ fears and challenges (Wodak 2015, 4), selecting a specific group that can be described as an enemy and a dangerous ‘Other’ serves as a helpful means to an end. Anybody can potentially be constructed as a scapegoat, depending on “specific national, regional and even local contexts” (ibid.). In the case of Tomio Okamura, the EU is responsible for majority of Czech misfortunes. The “mad neo-colonists’ club” (Okamura 2017a) and its policies “[equal] the end of the Czech state and the Czech nation” (Okamura 2016d). Thus, numerous issues, such as dual food quality (Okamura 2017a) or slow COVID-19 vaccine rollout (Okamura 2021a) are to be blamed on the organisation, not only in the Czech Republic but in other EU countries as well, as exemplified below:
(9) We should know the truth and the main reasons which led the British to leaving, while each reason alone would be enough to leave – it is democracy, freedom, and economy. Brussels suppresses democracy, freedom and damages the economies of nation states. . . . [S]ecurity plays a role here, too – the European Union directly threatens the citizens of the member states by attracting and accepting illegal migrants from Africa and Asia . . . (Okamura 2020a)
The strategy of scapegoating is, again, used by the SPD leader to paint the picture of the EU as a harmless organisation which should be left by the Czech Republic (Okamura 2021a).
39 ANALYSIS
Discursive strategy of constructing/sharing conspiracy theories
In right-wing populist discourse, creating and/or spreading conspiracy theories often serves as a way of explaining unfortunate situations or events by suggesting that certain powerful groups or individuals benefit from such situations and events (Wodak 2015, 184). The sinister subjects may therefore be interested in inducing and perpetuating these. National governments and the EU tend to be described by Okamura as entities which aim to silence the European nations (and hence also the Czech Republic) and diminish their sovereignty (Okamura 2015c, 2016a, 2017b). According to Okamura, “mainstream governmental” parties as well as the “pseudo-opposite” ones are denying citizens “the right to vote on important areas of life, for example on withdrawal from the European union” (Okamura 2016a). Regarding the EU as such, Okamura claims that “Brussels’ program is the abolition of nation states” (Okamura 2020a) and that the organisation is “establishing neo-Marxist totalitarianism” through its policies of “bullying decent people” (Okamura 2018b). The discursive strategy of using conspiracy theories is further emphasized by the strategy of creating fear, such as when declaring that “the EU’s leaders do not care about the health of our citizens” (Okamura 2017a) or implying there are some “strange deals going on” (Okamura 2021) which are hindering the purchase and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in the EU. For all of these reasons, the Czech Republic would, in Okamura’s opinion, benefit from the EU withdrawal.
Topos of (internal) danger or threat
The use of this topos in Tomio Okamura’s discourse further proves his focus on refugees and immigrants, though the word “refugees” occurs only rarely and is mostly used ironically. With the incoming “illegal immigrants” (Okamura 2015c), the threat of an external enemy is turned into danger which is already present inside the EU, since “secret services estimate that several thousand Islamic State fighters have already penetrated the EU today” (ibid.). Okamura also claims that the goal of the immigrants is “to control the caliphate in Europe” and adds that “[if]
40
ANALYSIS anyone doubts [it], they should know that the Islamic State has declared a completely official war on European countries and we are at war, whether someone likes it or not” (ibid.). In this regard, Okamura criticises the EU for having created the Schengen area which he perceives to be one of the causes of “illegal immigrants and terrorists [being able to] move freely across the EU” (Okamura 2019a). Hence, to be able to secure its own borders again, the Czech Republic should choose to leave the Union (Okamura 2016b, 2016d).
Topos of uselessness or disadvantage
Listing the drawbacks resulting from the Czech membership in the EU is a frequent feature of Okamura’s speeches. Emphasized by use of dramatization and exaggeration, Okamura expresses his discontent about the Schengen area (Okamura 2019a), the Lisbon Treaty (ibid.) or the planned quota-based relocation system (Okamura 2016b). These, in his view, “brutally damaged the position of the Czech Republic” (Okamura 2019a) and are responsible for the refugee crisis (Okamura 2015c). The aforementioned criticisms of the EU’s lack of reformability (Okamura 2018c) serve as another example of the uselessness topos being used by the SPD leader.
Topos of burden or weighing down
To support his calls for a referendum on the Czech withdrawal from the EU, the topos of burden or weighing down can be found quite regularly in Tomio Okamura’s appearances, together with the analogous topoi of uselessness or disadvantage, and of danger or threat. Here, the EU and its policies are depicted as impediments to the Czech Republic and its development, often using the discursive strategies of provocation, dramatization, and exaggeration. For example, the GDPR is called “the dictate of the European Union” and “bullying” (Okamura 2018b), while an EU directive on firearms is perceived to be a case of “chivvying” and, again, “Brussels’ dictate” (Okamura 2020c). Okamura also complains that the EU causes economic damage to its members,
41 ANALYSIS especially the Czech Republic (Okamura 2020a, 2020b), and that it “leads us to hell” (Okamura 2016a).
Topos of people
Through the topos of people, Tomio Okamura emphasizes the desirability of utilizing referenda and other tools of direct democracy in the Czech policy-making process. This objective is justified by Okamura by insisting that citizens should be allowed to make their own decisions about their lives, e.g., about the membership of their country in the EU (Okamura 2016d, 2017a, 2018a, 2020a). Switzerland is sometimes mentioned as an example of good practice regarding referenda (Okamura 2020a) and, increasingly, the United Kingdom is also used by Okamura as a model worth following due to Brexit (Okamura 2020a, 2021a). Despite his political success and thus, in theory, now being a part of the elite, Okamura continues to present himself as a speaker on behalf of the people and the people’s general will. As elaborated below, Nigel Farage positions himself in the same way. This sits well with Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser’s (2017, 12) findings that “populists in power have been able to sustain their anti-establishment rhetoric by partly redefining the elite,” and, in these specific cases, arguing that the real power rests with other parties and politicians, as well as “shadowy forces that continue to hold on to illegitimate powers to undermine the voice of the people” (ibid.).
5.1.3 Linguistic Means and Realizations Majority of speeches published on Tomio Okamura’s social media profiles are addressed to the target group of Okamura’s supporters and potential voters. Okamura either speaks directly to this audience or uses the video recordings of his rhetorical performances from other events, such as the proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies, to share his opinions and encourage his supporters to voice theirs.15 Okamura is usually brief
15 Svačinová (2018b, 200) mentions that “[a]n important element of the communication of Okamura and SPD on Facebook is the so-called banning. Especially in the pre-election period, it was typical that followers who expressed an opposition opinion or asked an
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ANALYSIS
and quickly suggests a simple solution to a presented problem; he does not include very florid lexical means into his addresses. Correspondingly, his speeches are usually of a shorter nature, with most of them not exceeding five minutes. However, this aspect has changed in the past year, as the politician has been shifting from publishing multiple shorter videos a day to longer daily summaries titled “Today’s news” (e.g., the 2021a and 2021b videos). Regarding Okamura’s rhetorical abilities, he can often be seen reading his speeches, and sometimes seems to lack confidence when delivering them.16 However, there has been a noticeable change in this area over the examined period, with Okamura now appearing to be more comfortable with his on-camera presence and improvising, especially during livestreamed speeches and other videos. Conversely, what remains the same throughout all examined samples is the style of Okamura’s self-presentation, which can be described as an unusual combination of politician-, influencer- and anchorman-like demeanours. The repeated use of distinctive introductions and closing sections in Okamura’s videos serves as an illustration:
(10) Dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my profile. . . . What do you think about these topics? Let me know in the comments. And if you agree with me, please share [this video] with all your friends so that they can learn true information which does not appear in the Czech manipulated and censored media. And I thank you for visiting my profile and wish you all the best. Have a nice day and let’s stick together! (Okamura 2016b)
unpleasant question under the contributions ‘got a ban’ . . . Only loyal supporters then participated in the discussion, and therefore the posts seemed unproblematic.”
16 According to a 2013 article published by the Lidovky.cz news server, evaluating Tomio Okamura’s rhetoric performance on a publicistic TV show, the then senator “spew[ed] out words like a machine gun” (Černá 2013). A lecturer of rhetoric states in the article that “Mr. Okamura’s verbal cadence is beyond comprehensibility” and that “an average listener has no chance to understand the influx of words”; nevertheless, Okamura’s speed of speech as well as his strong diction and gesticulation could also “evoke indignation and enthusiasm for work” in some (ibid.). Irregardless of whether this manner of speaking was intentional or not, Okamura’s speeches are now generally slower and easier to understand.
43 ANALYSIS
There are several more recurring lexical characteristics of Tomio Okamura’s discourse which further support all the claims previously mentioned in this chapter. The most significant ones are elaborated on below. The “we” pronoun is sometimes used by the politician to denote the members of SPD or the Czechs as a whole; still, more often it describes the “decent people,” while enabling Okamura to emphasize his perception of himself as the people’s representative and spokesperson (Okamura 2015c, 2021b). Historical and geographical parallels are drawn to better illustrate the harmfulness of the EU. Okamura implies that the EU’s decision-making process is similar to the Munich Agreement (Okamura 2020a), and likens the organisation to the USSR and the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, as it, in his view, oppresses the Czechs and their sovereignty in a similar way (Okamura 2019a, 2020a). Analogously, notable Czech historical figures which advocated and fought for the right of the Czechs to govern themselves are mentioned or cited in some of Okamura’s speeches, such as Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (a co-founder and the first president of Czechoslovakia) and Jan Hus (a Czech theologian, philosopher and an important predecessor to Protestantism). Through these references, Okamura suggests that the Czechs should leave the EU and thus regain their “absolute independence” (Okamura 2019b). In order to downgrade the EU and its representatives, Okamura frequently utilizes pejorative and/or mocking expressions and describes the Union and its policies as clueless, crazy, non-functional, insane, a bad joke, perverse etc. (Okamura 2015a, 2015c, 2016b, 2017a, 2017c, 2018b). The “so-called” adjective is also used, aiming to delegitimize the Czech opposition, EU grants and subsidies, or renewable resources (Okamura 2016c, 2021b). To accentuate the shockingness of the presented information, rhetorical questions and exclamations are often added in the speeches, such as “Isn’t that something,” “What can we say?” or “See? It’s true!” (Okamura 2017c, 2021a, 2021b).
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ANALYSIS
5.2 Discourse-Historical Analysis of Nigel Farage’s Selected Speeches
Despite several dissimilarities between the discourses of the two examined politicians, Nigel Farage’s discourse, too, meets Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser’s (2017, 6) definition of right-wing populism. In his speeches, the morally irreproachable people are represented by “ordinary people” (Farage 2011b, 2014b), i.e., most often the British citizens who are not involved in high politics. The deceitful elite then includes members of major political parties (that is, the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats) which, according to Farage, no longer believe in Britain (Farage 2011b) and are to blame for the fact that “our democracy has been sold” (ibid.), and the EU, allegedly attempting to “smash democracy across Europe” (Farage 2012a). Both these groups are blamed by Farage for having taken the right to decide on national matters away from the British people; other European nations such as the Greeks or the Irish are described in Farage’s speeches as victims of the European project and its “deep flaws” (Farage 2010a) as well. Additionally, certain media outlets (especially the BBC) are also seen as a part of the establishment (Brusenbauch Meislová and Buckledee 2021, 13), along with “big businesses, big banks and big politics” (Farage 2016b). As for the general will of the people, “sovereignty,” “independence,” “self-governance” and “democracy” serve as its fundamentals in Farage’s understanding (Farage 2016a, 2010b), with these core notions being based mainly in the desire for the Britons’ prosperous future, and, similarly to Okamura, in the British history. Unlike Okamura, however, Farage does not mention any specific historical figures, but rather acknowledges “those that went before us in the 20th century, twice risked and in some cases sacrificed everything to make sure that we and indeed the rest of Europe could live as free, parliamentary democracies” (Farage 2016b). Farage also implies that the UK should try to regain its position of a global superpower and is clearly proud of British traditions and the country’s long history (Farage 2015a); nevertheless, these are not derived from faith or religion in Farage’s case. Accordingly, the approach of Nigel Farage to immigration and immigrants is slightly different than the one of Okamura. Similarly to Okamura’s SPD, since 2010, UKIP “actively campaigned to mobilize
45 ANALYSIS anti-EU and anti-immigration sentiment among the public” (Clarke, Goodwin and Whiteley 2017, 5). To do so, Farage frequently emphasizes the possible impact of immigrants on the British social and healthcare systems, as well as the country’s job market and overall prosperity17 (Farage 2012d) in his speeches. However, instead of presenting the immigrants themselves as a threat to the very survival of the nation and condemning them for coming to the UK, he claims to understand their motivations and shifts the blame onto the EU and the parties which agree with its policies, typically the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats. These are sometimes referred to as LibLabCon18 by Farage and are often criticised for being so similar that “you can’t put a cigarette paper between them” (Farage 2011c). The leading members of these parties are seen as “college kids with no experience of the real world” (ibid.), which is something that Farage himself claims to have gained during his years in business prior to entering politics in the 1990s (Farage 2010b). The EU and its representatives are also depicted in a bad light with Farage accusing “the European political class” of being “out of touch, uncaring and simply plain wrong” (Farage 2013a) and calling the organisation “a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment, of low growth” (Farage 2012a). The following pages dive deeper into Nigel Farage’s discourse concerning the EU and the UK’s then-potential withdrawal from it, following the same structure as the previous section. The most substantial findings are then summarised in Chapter 6, where they are also compared to discoveries from the section dedicated to Tomio Okamura.
17 In 2012, Farage warned that with the beginning of 2014, after the EU’s transitional controls are lifted, there would be a surge of immigrants, particularly from Bulgaria and Romania (Farage 2012d). He described “opening the door to unlimited numbers from those two countries” as “madness” and warned it would lead to a “really big migratory wave into this country” (ibid.). Nevertheless, Farage’s predictions were incorrect, as “the growth in the Romanian and Bulgarian populations of the UK . . . remained at the same steady pace” of the previous years (Travis 2014). 18 “LibLabCon is a phrase used by Britons who hold the belief that there [are] no real [discernible] differences between the mainstream political parties in Britain, and that the country is thus technically a one-party state” (Urban Dictionary 2009).
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ANALYSIS
5.2.1 Contents and Discourse Topics This section again covers the first level of the discourse-historical approach, in other words, the dominant discourse topics of Nigel Farage’s speeches relating to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Like Tomio Okamura, Farage too uses several topics in each of his speeches; in the same vein, the topics also overlap, get switched frequently, and, together with their subtopics are tightly interconnected with the remaining dimensions of DHA. Bearing these factors in mind, there are still three particular discourse topics which prevail in the selected speeches of Nigel Farage: (1) the EU’s (economic) unprofitableness; (2) the EU as a source of decline; and (3) alternative to EU membership. This subsection explores these topics in greater detail.
The European Union as an unprofitable project
Nigel Farage is a vocal critic of the European Union and regularly lists reasons why the project seems unreasonable to him, especially when building support for his arguments in favour of the necessity to leave the Union. Mainly in some of his speeches from the early 2010s, Farage is particularly critical of the eurozone, stating that “the north and the south in Europe cannot today, or at any point, be put together in a single monetary union, it won’t work” (Farage 2010a); he also calls efforts of the EU to resolve the Greek government-debt crisis “madness” (Farage 2012b). The same word is also used by Farage when expressing his disagreement about the fact that the EU withholds the UK from having its own trade deals with other parts of the world (Farage 2012d; similarly also Farage 2015a). Moreover, the EU’s “climate change agenda” is condemned by Farage as it “is costing the British taxpayer £18 billion extra a year and will do for the next 25 years, including the insanity of building offshore wind farms” (Farage 2010b). Apart from the eurozone and the EU’s fiscal and energy policies, the politician also disapproves of having to adhere to the European legislation, as well as contributing to the European budget. This, together with Farage’s emphasis on the UK’s helplessness caused by the country’s EU membership, is very well reflected in the following excerpt:
(11) Again, nothing we can do about it all the while we’re members of the European Union. We’re living through a period where we’re told we
47 ANALYSIS
must tighten our belts. You know, we must not go on spending the amount of money we have been – and yet, we seem to be happy to give £55 million a day as a membership fee to the European Union. And the UKIP argument is: that money we better off spent here in this country. (Farage 2014b)
This focus on economic well-being of the UK and its citizens manifests itself in Farage’s approach towards immigrants as well. As mentioned above, Farage warns that due to lack of border control caused by the EU, a surge in numbers of immigrants from the southern and eastern Europe should be expected, which will then put a strain on the country’s social and healthcare systems, and which might also drive down the wages of the British workers (Farage 2012d, 2016b). In Farage’s opinion, the EU and its policies are to be blamed for this, since they make it impossible for individual member states to fully manage their borders, as shown below:
(12) [I]t is a basic facet of a state that you should be able to control your borders and decide in your own parliament who comes to live, work, and settle in our country – and we will fight this battle. (Farage 2013b)
It is predominantly the economic unprofitability and overall unreasonability caused by the purported lack of self-governance which make Farage believe that the United Kingdom should withdraw from the EU, as it would be better off without it.
The European Union as a source of decline
To further emphasize this message, Farage accompanies the topic of the EU being unprofitable with describing the Union as incompetent or a failure (Farage 2012a), especially regarding the euro, the eurozone, but also climate change. According to him, “the deep flaws of the euro project were exposed” (Farage 2010a) and the common currency is “actively destroying” growth and jobs (Farage 2012b), as is the EU’s “policy of economic unilateralism on climate change” (Farage 2014c). Depicting the European Union as a source of decline of both the UK and all the other member states is a discourse topic which reappears time and again in Farage’s speeches. From his point of view, it is because
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ANALYSIS of its membership in the Union that the UK loses its money, influence, as well as control over its industries, decision making, and immigration into the country (Farage 2011b, 2014b). Furthermore, given the perceived non-functionality of the euro, Farage predicts that “the eurozone will end in large-scale violence,” “political extremism,” and “sadly, in the southern European nations and the northern European nations hating each other” (Farage 2013c). He also claims that the Union’s “open-door migration is fundamentally changing societies in ways that people don’t want” (Farage 2014c) and that the Common European Asylum System lead to “an exodus of biblical proportions” and a “stampede” of economic migrants (Farage 2015a, 2015b). Overall, the politician routinely expresses his dissatisfaction with European status quos, stating that “this isn’t a Europe of peace: it’s a Europe of division, it’s a Europe of disharmony, it’s a Europe that is a recipe for resentment” (Farage 2015b). Behind this purportedly dismal state of affairs are, according to Farage, the EU which increasingly resembles the USSR; he specifically puts the blame on the Union’s leaders whose goal, supposedly, it is to create a centralized political union (Farage 2011a) and thus destroy democracy in the EU member states (Farage 2012a, 2012c), as well as the countries’ and their peoples’ diversity (Farage 2010b). Farage even goes as far as to say that the EU will “turn itself into a militarized undemocratic danger to global peace” (Farage 2012c) and that “there’s effectively been a coup d’état on nation-state democracies without people realizing . . . what was being done to them” (Farage 2014d) – meaning that the UK, for instance, joined the European Economic Community under conditions which have since changed significantly and without the knowledge and/or consent of the British public (Farage 2011c). As elaborated on in the section below, the plans of the then-current leadership of the Union are labelled by Farage as “United States of Europe” (Farage 2012b); Farage also warns such development might lead to federalization of the Union, i.e., the member states having to surrender their sovereignty in favour of Brussels (Farage 2012c). Such evolution of the European project is fiercely rejected by Farage (2010b, 2011b, 2013b, 2014d).
49 ANALYSIS
Alternative to membership in the European Union
Given all of the mentioned factors, Nigel Farage believes that should the British vote again on whether or not to join the EU given the current19 terms and conditions, they would decide against joining the Union; therefore, the country should simply withdraw from the EU (Farage 2012c, 2013b, 2015a, 2016a, 2016b). Equally to Tomio Okamura, Nigel Farage often utilizes the previous discourse topics to build up support for his main argument, i.e., that holding a referendum on the British membership in the EU and, in the ideal case, voting to leave the Union represents an opportunity for the British people to finally shape their country’s future again. The politician sees the possible withdrawal from the Union as a “key to our future success” and a chance to “regenerate this country” (Farage 2012c), as is evident from the following excerpt:
(13) What I want above all is . . . a free and fair referendum so that we can decide . . . whether we wanna be a part of this new European project or whether we wanna take back our independence, our self-government our democracy, and, as I would put it, our pride – and whether we wanna recalibrate the British economy, the British country and take us away from being a European country. We’re not a European country, we’re a global trading nation . . . (Farage 2010b)
Regarding the potential post-withdrawal future, Farage states that he does “want a Europe, but a Europe based on trade, a Europe based on cooperation . . . but we cannot do it if we’re asked to rally behind that flag” (Farage 2012a). In other words, the politician hopes that after the UK’s “amicable divorce” (Farage 2011c) from the EU, other countries will follow suit, hold their own referenda, and “[claim] back their rights of democracy and self-government” (Farage 2013a). The UK’s withdrawal from the EU would therefore offer an alternative not only to the UK itself, but also to other member states since it would establish a precedent for
19 Meaning, again, prior to the announcement of the 2016 UK EU membership referendum.
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ANALYSIS
leaving the organisation and prospering even without the membership. Correspondingly, the referendum is portrayed as “a bright star on the horizon” by Farage (2015b). In order to reach it, Farage and his party strived to spread the message about its necessity among the British voters. At multiple UKIP conferences, the party’s leader proclaims that UKIP is gradually gaining the support of the former LibLabCon voters and that the party is becoming a “mainstream British political power” (Farage 2011b, 2011c; similarly also Farage 2012d). According to Farage, “the entire political class had basically given up on Britain” (Farage 2010b), politicians such as David Cameron are afraid to stand up for their nation (Farage 2011c), and what’s more, they even lie to its people: “we’ve been . . . given lies and deceit for decades by UK politicians about the true nature of the European project” (Farage 2012c). Nevertheless, Nigel Farage is optimistic and frequently expresses his belief that the possibility of the country’s withdrawal from the EU is drawing increasing attention and support of both the British media and voters (Farage 2012c, 2012d); therefore, a referendum on the issue should soon20 become a reality with, as Farage hopes, “people power” winning the vote (Farage 2016a).
5.2.2 Discursive Strategies and Topoi This section explores the discursive strategies and topoi through which Nigel Farage conveys his messages about the UK’s membership in the EU, and, more importantly, about the potential and desired withdrawal therefrom. Following the pattern of the previous sections dedicated to Tomio Okamura, Ruth Wodak’s classification is once again used to analyse this dimension of Farage’s discourse (see Appendices A and B for complete lists and definitions of the studied strategies and topoi). On average, approximately eight discursive strategies appear per one video, with the four most often recurring ones being the strategies of (1) provocation; (2) dramatization and exaggeration; (3) positive
20 In one of his 2013 speeches, Farage even estimates that the UK is going to leave the Union within the next 5 or 6 years (Farage 2013c).
51 ANALYSIS self-presentation and negative other-presentation; and (4) perspectivization.21 Circa nine topoi are generally used in a video, the most substantial ones including: (1) topos of comparison or analogy; (2) topos of burden; (3) topos of people; and (4) topos of reality. The following paragraphs discuss these four topoi which Nigel Farage often utilizes in his speeches, along with the four listed discursive strategies of the same sort.
Discursive strategy of provocation
Intentionally provoking others is a strategy that Nigel Farage uses in an overwhelming majority of his speeches in order to further emphasize the desirability of leaving the EU. The strategy itself is very similar to the strategies of dramatization and exaggeration (see below) and is connected to that of perspectivization as well (also elaborated on below). In this case, however, Farage does not shy away from criticising and picking at specific people despite knowing they are either present in the audience or will be able to listen to his speeches later. High-level representatives of the EU, such as Herman van Rompuy, Martin Schultz, and José Manuel Barroso, are addressed by Farage in an ironic, mocking or even insulting manner, usually for being delusional or deceptive about the nature and/or benefits of the organisation (Farage 2010a). The following excerpt demonstrates this quite well:
(14) We’re in the midst of an economic and increasingly humanitarian crisis and yet, Commission President Barroso is not here; indeed, Herman van Rompuy is not here either. Not that it really matters because they’re not prepared to listen to any debate or any argument; they’re intent on pursuing their political dream of a United States of Europe – they’re prepared to commit economic suicide for an entire continent. (Farage 2012b)
Apart from the EU officials, Farage also ridicules and/or condemns prominent members of other British parties for “[going] along with this emerging EU state” (Farage 2010b) and for what he perceives as
21 Like in the section dedicated to Tomio Okamura and bearing in mind the length requirements for this thesis, only the most prominent discursive strategies and topoi are elaborated on here.
52
ANALYSIS avoiding calling a referendum on the UK’s membership in the EU (Farage 2012c).
Discursive strategies of dramatization and exaggeration
Similarly to provocation, exaggerated and hyperbolic statements often recur in Farage’s discourse. They are generally tied to the strategies of creating fear and construction of conspiracy theories, as well as the topos of comparison or analogy. In the politician’s case, this then translates into him comparing the EU to the Soviet Union and its representatives to communists (Farage 2012a, 2016a). Mentions of the EC intending “to harmonize us” and “to homogenize us” also occur (Farage 2010b), together with claims that British politicians lied to their citizens about the nature of the membership in 1975 and continue to do so today (Farage 2012c). As for the prospect of the UK leaving the organisation, Farage perceives this step as vital, suggesting that “we’ve got the fight of our lives on our hands” (ibid). Simultaneously, Nigel Farage believes that “the European dream is crumbling – absolutely crumbling,” “the enthusiasm for this project is dying” (Farage 2014c) and that “it’s like watching a slow-motion car crash” (Farage 2010a). Numerous metaphors, irony, and rhetorical questions are used to convey all these messages in the most powerful way possible.
Discursive strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation
Most often used at UKIP’s conferences and political rallies, this strategy is utilized by Nigel Farage to distinguish himself and his party from what he sees as the political establishment of both the EU and the UK. Regarding the country’s membership in the Union, Farage emphasizes that UKIP, contrary to the LibLabCon parties, is against a “fudged, stitched-up referendum” (Farage 2012c). Instead, they want independence and intend to “cause an earthquake in British politics” (ibid.); their aim is essentially to “change the future of this country
53 ANALYSIS forever” (ibid.). The then-Prime Minister David Cameron is among the most frequently mentioned politicians, with Farage publicly reprimanding him for not having fulfilled his 2009 “cast-iron guarantee” of holding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (Farage 2011b). Cameron’s initial reluctance to call an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership in the EU is also criticised, as can be seen below:
(15) [L]ast week, he was . . . asked, “Should there not be then a referendum on our continued membership of the EU, so that the people of this country can sort out their futures . . . ” And Cameron’s response, I think said it all . . . what he’s saying is he won’t give you a vote because he fears what the answer might be. And he knows what is best for you and that is that you should not be able to express your will on it. Frankly, that is nothing short of total breath-taking arrogance, and we are going to teach him a lesson for that. (ibid.)
At the EU level, Farage sometimes juxtaposes himself with other EU politicians, such as José Manuel Barroso, presenting himself as a defender of European citizens, and others as detached from reality (Farage 2013a).
Discursive strategy of perspectivization
The strategy of perspectivization “realizes the author’s involvement, for example, via deïxis, quotation marks, metaphors and so forth” and thus enables the author to distance themselves from the literal meaning of their utterance (Wodak 2015, 51). In the speeches of Nigel Farage, this strategy usually appears in combination with the strategies of provocation and reformulation or redefinition, and is executed through paraphrasing the statements of Farage’s political opponents, as reflected in the following quote:
(16) And you never know, David Cameron might even keep his promise and hold a referendum in the United Kingdom. And I’m sure, as democrats, you would all welcome a referendum on the EU in the United Kingdom. (Farage 2010a)
Additionally, metaphors, similes and other methods of comparison are employed by Farage to make his speeches more captivating,
54
ANALYSIS entertaining and/or easier to understand (see examples below); oftentimes, politicians who Farage disagrees with are also directly quoted by Farage who then rephrases their words for the same purposes.
Topos of comparison or analogy
As has been suggested above, Nigel Farage regularly accentuates perceived similarities to support his claims; in one of his videos, for instance, he insists that “the EU Titanic has now hit the iceberg” (Farage 2012a). However, comparisons of the European and Soviet Unions are dominant, with Farage stating that the EU “increasingly shows similarities with that old Soviet Union” (Farage 2011a) and that the internal processes in the organisation remind him of “good old Soviet times” (Farage 2014d). Farage also likens himself to Churchill and his efforts to persuade the British political establishment of the 1930s to admit that Hitler’s Germany indeed does present a danger to Europe (Farage 2010b). Apart from these analogies, Farage sometimes mentions various non-EU countries which, to him, seem to be thriving despite (or rather because of) not being members of the EU or any similar organisation. The examples of Iceland, Australia, China, or the USA then serve as proofs that the UK will be able to prosper should it withdraw from the European Union (Farage 2014c, 2015a).
Topos of people
Similarly to Okamura, Farage positions himself as a spokesman of the “ordinary people” (Farage 2011b). Even though he does not campaign for the British policy-making process to be based predominantly on the principles of direct democracy like Okamura, as far as the UK’s membership in the EU is concerned, Farage still demands “that this country is given a full, free and fair choice in a referendum, so that we can decide who governs Britain” (Farage 2012c). Nigel Farage focuses primarily on representing the citizens of the UK: on one occasion, he declares that “whilst we want to be friends and
55 ANALYSIS neighbours, whilst we want to trade with each other, we insist . . . that the best thing we can do in our own countries is to put the interests of our nations and our nations’ peoples first” (Farage 2011c). Concurrently, on the European level, he commonly alters his narrative and speaks on behalf of all Europeans, blaming the EU politicians for their “desire to impose a political union upon the peoples of Europe without their consent” (Farage 2011a). According to Farage, “the vast majority of European people don’t want a European state, don’t want a European Commission to be the executive, don’t want that flag and don’t want that anthem” (Farage 2014d); rather than the “United States of Europe”, Europeans choose sovereignty (Farage 2014a).
Topos of burden
Through the topos of burden, Farage emphasizes restraints and liabilities imposed by the EU on its members, notably the UK. These include, purportedly, losing control over British industries (Farage 2011b), facing increased influxes of migrants due to lack of border control (Farage 2012d, 2016b), sharing British waters with other EU members (Farage 2016b), having to pay “£55 million a day as a membership fee” (Farage 2016a), being obliged to adhere to EU legislation (Farage 2012c, 2014d), “surrender[ing] the control and sovereignty of your parliament” (Farage 2016a), and “cut[ting] your links with the Commonwealth and the wider world” (ibid.). From Farage’s perspective, these problems can be solved once the UK, along with Ireland and other countries “[claim] back their rights of democracy and self-government” (Farage 2013a). In the case of the United Kingdom, this should be done via a referendum and, ideally, withdrawing from the Union.
Topos of reality
Not unlike the previous topos, the topos of reality is also tied, in part, to the topoi of uselessness and danger or threat. Farage applies it mainly to describe current affairs and status quos in a matter-of-fact manner which suits his Eurosceptic worldview, explaining to other members of the European Parliament that “the north and the south in Europe cannot today, or at any point, be put together in a single monetary union; it won’t
56
ANALYSIS
work” (Farage 2010a), adding that they are “all in denial” regarding the lack of functionality of both the euro and the EU as a whole (ibid.; Farage 2013c). When addressing his fellow UKIP members or the party’s supporters from the general public, Farage shifts to more detailed and multifaceted descriptions of reality. In such speeches, he will often present himself as somebody who, unlike other politicians, refuses to lie to people, and therefore is not afraid to say things as they are, claiming, for instance, that “our democracy has been sold” for the country’s membership in the EU (Farage 2011b). The strategy of constructing and/or spreading conspiracy theories is also utilized in like situations to gain the people’s support for leaving the Union.
5.2.3 Linguistic Means and Realizations Before commenting on specific phrases and figures of speech Nigel Farage employs, it is important to emphasize the importance of the fact that different time periods are examined in each of the politicians’ cases. As a result, the target audiences of Farage’s speeches differ significantly from Okamura’s ones. Since majority of the selected speeches of Nigel Farage were delivered before social media became a norm in politicians’ communication, most of the speeches are addressed either to other members of the European Parliament (MEPs) or to Farage’s fellow UKIP members, in contrast to Okamura’s supporters being the dominant target group of his videos.22 The length of Farage’s speeches very much depends on the contexts the speeches are made in. Given the time allotments during the proceedings of the European Parliament, his commentaries there tend to be under or around five minutes long; the speeches delivered in front of UKIP’s members and/or supporters are typically longer than 15 minutes with some of them nearing 30 minutes. The structure of his speeches changes accordingly, for Farage manages to reflect upon more topics and utilize more strategies and topoi as a result of longer time frames. All of these tools are then selected and phrased so that they support his central
22 For the same reason, it is difficult to determine whether or not Farage utilized the discursive strategy of calculated ambivalence in some of the selected videos, as it is uncertain if he was aware that the recordings of his speeches would be published online and could thus target various groups of viewers.
57 ANALYSIS message, i.e., the necessity of a referendum on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. Contrary to Tomio Okamura, Nigel Farage is a skilled and confident rhetorician. During his addresses, he barely consults his notes and frequently speaks off-the-cuff; he is also very good at quickly establishing connection with his audience and holding their attention all throughout the speeches, despite using less calls to action than Okamura. Apart from his ability to improvise and the recurring linguistic realizations listed below, Farage also benefits from being rather dynamic, acerbic, and charismatic and thus represents the trends of “personalization and commodification of current politics and politicians” which “lead to a focus on ‘charismatic’ leaders” (Wodak 2015, 21). In short, Farage’s style of self-presentation could be described as a combination of statesman-, businessman- and comedian-like characteristics. The following paragraphs present some of the specific recurring lexical, rhetorical, and performative themes of Nigel Farage’s discourse which enable him to present his opinions in a compelling yet entertaining way. An energetic entry on stage, together with an equally lively “Good morning, everybody!” is often used by Farage to further agitate his audience before he starts his speech. Usually heard at UKIP conferences and rallies, Farage’s supporters generally reply excitedly (Farage 2011c, 2015a). Conversely, in the European Parliament, Farage too greets other MEPs, but immediately shifts to a criticism or poking fun at them, e.g., mentioning that “even for the standards of this place, today’s atmosphere has been laden” and explaining that this is so because “something really big has changed; the European dream is crumbling” (Farage 2014c). Contrary to Okamura’s calls to action, Farage’s speeches are finished with the politician making a proclamation of some sort, such as “[w]e are together, we are united, and I believe that the tide has turned; I think that something is changing out there and I believe we’re on course to win the most historic and the most important political victory in any of our lifetimes. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.” (Farage 2015a). This presence of rhetorical pathos illustrates the differences between the British and the Czech political speechmaking practices, as well as their political cultures. The “we” pronoun is frequently used by Farage to distinguish himself, other UKIP members, the British nation as a whole, and the “ordinary people” from “them,” i.e., the establishment (Farage 2011c,
58
ANALYSIS
2012d). In order to connect with his audiences and to prove he is not a member of the political establishment, Farage sometimes incorporates his life story into his speeches as well (Farage 2010b, 2014b). Similarly, the above-mentioned topos of people is further emphasized by Farage denoting UKIP and the party’s supporters as “the People’s Army” (Farage 2016b). David Cameron, on the contrary, is mocked by Nigel Farage for being too detached, with Farage even calling the Prime Minister “Dave” since “well, that’s what he likes to be called – he’s a man of the people, isn’t he?” (Farage 2014b). Apart from Cameron and other “college kids on work experience” (Farage 2012c), Farage also frequently makes fun of Herman van Rompuy, calling the then-President of the European Council “Rumpy Pumpy” (Farage 2010c) and ridiculing him for his lack of charisma (Farage 2010b); José Manuel Barroso is also on Farage’s radar, with the British politician labelling Barroso as “an advocate of Chairman Mao” (Farage 2011a). Moreover, in some of the examined videos, MEPs are also called “maniacs” by Farage (2014c) and are scolded for their “sheer stupidity” (Farage 2010a). Despite these personal attacks and calling the EU a “madhouse” (Farage 2010b), the politician denies being anti-European, using his wife’s German origin as evidence (ibid.) and listing common sense, patriotism, and appreciation for tradition as the main reasons why he believes the United Kingdom should withdraw from the European Union (Farage 2015a).
59 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
6 Conclusion and Discussion
This thesis sought to assess to what extent the discourses of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage regarding the EU withdrawal of their respective countries resemble and differ from each other. As the analysis has shown, the discourses show a remarkable degree of similarity, with both of them fulfilling the fundamental characteristics of Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser’s definition of right-wing populism. In Okamura’s case, the society – which he appeals to when calling for Czexit – consists of decent and/or working people (i.e., the morally irreproachable group) and the establishment made up of traditional politicians, the EU, mainstream media, and non-profit organisations (that is, the corrupt elites). Similarly, in Farage’s viewpoint, these groups consist of ordinary people (i.e., the morally uncorrupt people) and the establishment which includes members of main political parties, the EU, some media, and major banks and businesses (the deceptive elites). Regarding the volonté generale, sovereignty and democracy serve as the cornerstones of the people’s will in both Okamura and Farage’s cases; however, each of the politicians accompanies these two concepts with different ones when advocating for their countries to leave the EU. For Okamura, safety is of great importance, while Farage prioritises the concepts of self-governance and independence. The politicians’ understanding of the volonté generale is reflected in their stances towards the EU (and hence also the withdrawal from the Union) which are typically negative, critical, and rejective. Claiming to represent the people and their will, Farage and Okamura share the vision of their countries withdrawing from the Union, so that they can regain the democracy, sovereignty, and freedom which they lost with their membership in the EU. In order to achieve that, the politicians want to gain enough support and/or impel the governing representatives to hold referenda on the British and Czech membership in the Union – this way, people themselves can decide about the future of their countries, and thus, ideally, leave the organisation. Envisioned by both Okamura and Farage, the ideal Europe equals a Europe of sovereign nations which broke free from the restrictive and oppressive EU, and therefore regained their independence and the ability to make their own decisions on issues such as border control or economy.
60
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Despite their intentions being quite difficult to tell apart, the discourses of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage concerning the topic of the EU withdrawal do show some significant differences. Following the three-level discourse-historical approach to CDA, the analysis first uncovers the dissimilarities in the discourse topics. The Czech politician usually paints the EU as an anti-democratic oppressor which, in addition, is incompetent and unable to react to threats faced by the European citizen, whereas Nigel Farage presents the EU as a non-functional and unprofitable project that leads to the decline of the UK as well as other European nations. As frequently argued by both politicians, all of these problems could be resolved by withdrawing from the Union; the desirability and necessity of this solution is then often emphasized through the discourse topic of an alternative to the EU membership. Through this topic, Okamura and Farage also describe the withdrawal as a means to a brighter future. As for the second level of DHA, i.e., the discursive strategies and topoi, both politicians rely to a great extent on the strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation, as well as on that of dramatization and exaggeration. The topoi of people and burden or weighing down are also used by both Farage and Okamura. Such strategies and topoi are utilized to reinforce the image of the harmful EU and its representatives, and to legitimize the politicians’ calls for referenda on the withdrawal of their two respective countries from the organisation. However, apart from these shared strategies and topoi, each of the politicians also employs additional ones which also fit their narratives. In Tomio Okamura’s case, these include the strategies of scapegoating and constructing/sharing conspiracy theories, together with the topos of danger or threat and the topos of uselessness or disadvantage, whereas Farage prefers the strategies of provocation and perspectivization and the topoi of reality and of comparison or analogy. The findings from the third level of the analysis show probably the most easily noticeable differences between the speeches of Tomio Okamura and Nigel Farage. While Farage is evidently more confident in his rhetorical abilities and does not shy away from improvising and including pathos into his speeches, Okamura usually follows a clear, tried-and-tested structure in his videos, and often consults his notes. The floridness of Nigel Farage’s discourse which is absent from Okamura’s speeches is then, in a way, replaced by the SPD leader’s recurring calls to action through which he asks for support of potential voters. Regardless
61 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION of the dissimilarities, both politicians frequently utilize the rhetorical devices of irony and sarcasm. Both Okamura and Farage also draw numerous historical parallels to illustrate the importance of withdrawing from the EU, and often use the pronoun “we,” positioning themselves as the spokesmen and advocates for the ordinary, decent, and hard-working people. Summing up, in order to gain support for their efforts aimed at their countries’ EU withdrawal, the politicians use discourses which are fairly comparable. At the same time, Okamura and Farage’s discourses show numerous differences at all of the examined levels. These can be assumed to have been caused by the politicians’ differing perceptions of the general will of the people: while Okamura’s understanding of the volonté generale is more safety-oriented and grounded in the notions of history, patriotism and religion, for Farage, the people’s will is based rather on self-governance and independence, and is tied to the prospect of a prosperous future. The thesis should conclude with an acknowledgement of its limitations. Apart from the previously mentioned lack of literature on the topic, the length requirement for the thesis is, too, a constraining factor, as is the fact that the access to the analysed samples can be restricted by their authors at any time. Furthermore, given the limited number of examined cases and samples, the results of the analysis cannot be considered generalisable, which presents its main drawback. Nevertheless, this particular limitation also serves as an opportunity for further research, which could, for instance, take a broader comparative perspective and examine more speeches of relevant politicians from other member states of the European Union promoting their countries’ withdrawal from the EU. Such research might significantly contribute to a better understanding of the topics of the right-wing populist discourse in relation to the European Union and the withdrawal therefrom.
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APPENDIX A SELECTED LIST OF DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES IN RIGHT-WING POPULIST DISCOURSE
Appendix A Selected list of discursive strategies in right-wing populist discourse
Selected list of discursive strategies in right-wing populist discourse Discursive strategy Meaning Calculated ambivalence Addressing multiple and contradictory audiences through a single, cleverly layered message; a double-message Victim-perpetrator reversal Claiming victimhood and blaming the victim(s) instead Scapegoating Choosing a group (e.g., a minority) to blame for most if not all current woes and subsequently describing the respective group as dangerous and a threat ‘to us’ Conspiracy theories Construction of and/or spreading explanations for events or situations claiming that certain sinister and powerful groups, often motivated by potential gains (political, financial etc.), are responsible Provocation (i.e., intentionally provoking A strategy intentionally triggered to attract (esp. media) attention a scandal) Dramatization Generating tension in order to build up support Exaggeration An overstatement used for the same purposes Denial (i.e., act-denial, control-denial, A part of a general defence/justification strategy when accused or blamed of having intention-denial, goal-denial) behaved in an inappropriate way Justification An attempt to turn blame into credit; e.g., when claiming to be saving the country/nation/fatherland from terrorists, or migrants, or any other danger Legitimization The use of specific moral stances and reformulated historical narratives (myths) to legitimize ‘Othering’ and typically implement even more restrictive measures against ‘Others’ Reformulation; redefinition Altering the meaning of/assigning a new meaning to a phenomenon or previously uttered phrase, so that it fits the speaker’s current narrative and worldview Balancing Justifying heterogeneous motivations by employing one theory or belief Equation Employing metaphors and analogies (such as ‘this occurs everywhere’, enumerating similar problems in other countries) Generalization Projecting specific attributes onto a group that is imagined as homogenous Perspectivization Realizing an author’s involvement, for example, via deïxis, quotation marks, metaphors etc. (e.g., framing a phrase in quotation marks, so that the author can distance themselves from the literal meaning) Scientific rationalization Launching into extensive analyses and discussions about the past, often drawing on collective memories and fallaciously equating the context of a past event with current contexts Anti-intellectualism; arrogance of Acts of appealing to common-sense and a return to pre-modernist or pre-Enlightenment ignorance thinking Shifting the blame; blame avoidance (e.g., Attributing a specific action or utterance to somebody else ‘Not we, but them’) Creating fear Construction of an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear; in principle, almost anything can be constructed as a threat or danger to ‘Us’ and ‘Our culture’ Singularisation Positioning of oneself as unique and superior Positive self-presentation and negative Describing two groups as ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, the good people and the scapegoats, the pro other-presentation and contra of the crisis or any other topic or event
Source: Table by the author. All data from Wodak (2015).
73 APPENDIX B SELECTED LIST OF CONTENT-RELATED TOPOI IN RIGHT-WING POPULIST DISCOURSE
Appendix B Selected list of content-related topoi in right-wing populist discourse
Selected list of content-related topoi in right-wing populist discourse Topos Warrant Topos of people “If the people favour/refuse a specific action, the action should be performed/not performed.” Topos of advantage or usefulness “If an action under a specific relevant point of view will be useful, then one should perform it.” “If one can anticipate that the predicted consequences of a decision will not occur, then the Topos of uselessness or disadvantage decision has to be rejected.” Topos of (internal) danger or threat “If there are specific dangers or threats, one should do something against them.” “If a person, an institution or a country is burdened by specific problems, one should act in Topos of burden or weighing down order to diminish those burdens.” “If a specific situation or action costs too much money or causes a loss of revenue, one should Topos of finance perform actions that diminish those costs or help to avoid/mitigate the loss.” Topos of reality “Because reality is as it is, a specific action/decision should be performed/made.” “If the numbers prove/don’t prove a specific standpoint, a specific action should be Topos of numbers performed/not be carried out.” “If danger is to be expected because of X and if A has saved us in the past, then A will be able to Topos of saviour save us again.” “Since history teaches that specific actions have specific consequences, one should perform or Topos of history omit a specific action in a specific situation (allegedly) comparable with the historical example referred to.” Topos of definition If this is defined by one as X, then this is X (and not Y). If there is a resemblance between two situations or events, the outcome of the second Topos of comparison or analogy situation/event will be the same as/very similar to the outcome of the first one. If ‘We’ share the same culture, then ‘We’ are all entitled to a specific thing (e.g., certain Topos of (common) culture geographical space). Conversely, ‘They’, who do not share our culture, do not have the right to call this thing “Theirs”. Topos of responsibility If X is responsible for Y, then X should/must perform a specific action. Topos of urgency If there is a (potentially) dangerous situation, it should be dealt with as soon as possible. If a specific action is performed, it will save a considerable amount of something favourable Topos of means (e.g., money, jobs). Should the action not be performed, some/all of this amount will be lost or wasted. “If people behave like X and are born as X and speak X, then they embody true X,” such as Topos of the true or mythical nationhood Britishness or Czechness. “If freedom of speech exists, then wrong opinions can also be voiced/every opinion can be Topos of freedom of speech voiced.”
“If you vote for me, I will utter important critique even if this is regarded as politically incorrect Topos of critique or inopportune.” Topos of authority “If authority X says that A is true, A is true.”
Source: Table by the author. Based on data from Wodak (2015).
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