The rhetorical use of the threat of the far-right in the UK Brexit debate

Abstract

While attention has been given to understanding support for the far-right, there is a lack of focus on the way in which a threat of the far-right can be used for political ends. This paper addresses this using the UK Brexit debate as an illustration. The question therefore is: What is talk about the far-right used to do in discussions about Brexit? A discursive psychological approach addresses a sample of newspaper reports containing both ‘Far-Right’ and ‘Brexit’, from the first quarter of 2019 (n = 45). The analysis identifies a range of uses of talk about the far-right: (1) An opponent of Brexit is called a Nazi by pro-Brexit protesters, who are labelled far-right; (2) A lack of Brexit is presented as fuel for the far-right; (3) Remain supporters reject the idea that a lack of Brexit fuels the far-right; (4) A link with the far-right is rejected by a prominent Brexit supporter; and (5) Support for Brexit is again linked with the far-right. The far-right can be used as a strategic tool by opposing sides of the Brexit debate and – significantly – the supposed threat of the far-right can be used to placate far-right ideas, rather than to genuinely challenge them.