The Rhetoric of Brexit: Issues and Ideographs

On 15th January 2021 I presented as a panellist for the GW4 Rhetoric in Society network at University of Bath. The panel, part of a three day Viral Rhetorics event, was on “Brexit and the Discourse of Empire” and focused on an individual artefact of Brexit.

My artefact for the Rhetoric of Brexit is the trigger point of the Brexit Campaign itself, an image of the failed protocol David Cameron presented to the European Council of 9th December 2011 for the repatriation of specific financial service powers from the EU to the UK.

I am not going to discuss the provisions of the proposal; it is the symbolism of the proposal as a trigger point that I am most concerned with.  So what do I mean by a ‘trigger point’?  There had been debates raging about Brexit for many years, so how was this a ‘trigger point?’

My segment of today’s panel will focus on the competing narratives of Brexit from the perspective of issues management theory – from the idea that the rhetorical devices and ideographs presented in the Brexit debate create complex and competing narratives of different empires – imaginary and illusionary.  

I will also use issues management theory, of which the trigger point is a constituent element, to argue that, far from depressurising Brexit as an ‘issue,’ the trade deal the UK has just signed has morphed into a raging debate around freedom and libertarianism.  It represents not the end game of Brexit, but the very eye of the storm.  

I will argue that through mismanagement of rhetorical narratives, poor issues management of Brexit has allowed concepts of empire to escalate into a crisis of identity that now encompasses constructions of freedom and sovereignty, refusal to comply with public health necessities and castigation of the NHS, itself a product of the long decolonising moment of empire.

I will examine this artefact or trigger through the interdisciplinary lens of a postcolonial approach to communications analysis.  With this focus in mind I am going to use issues management theory to very briefly examine how narratives of empire have contributed to the pressurisation of the Brexit issue and its escalation into a crisis.

Heath argues that issues management is the identification, monitoring and analysis of trends in key publics’opinions that can mature into public policy and regulatory or legislative constraint (Heath, 1997, p6).[1]

According to Regester & Larkin (1997), issues increase in intensity through three phases:

?       Potential

?       Emerging

?       Current

?       Reaching maximum intensity in the fourth phase, crisis

?       And depressurise dramatically in the final stage, dormant, when they are finally resolved.[2]

There are various points along this route that determine how quickly the issue can be resolved, and how likely it is to become a crisis.  The two most significant stages are the tipping point, and the trigger point.

The tipping point is the point at which “the reasonable person” can be persuaded to care enough about the issue to do something and act in a way that creates sufficient momentum for others to follow.  It is the moment when a debate that has been slowly evolving enters the public domain, usually via the media, adopts a political and social agenda and prompts a fundamental shift in thinking.  This tipping point leads to legislative and regulatory change that reshapes the business and social landscape.

It is important to recognise that the tipping point does not create the debate.  It may simplify it, give it some meaning and apply an emotional charge that fires the public’s imagination, but it is not the trigger.  That comes much earlier.  It is instead the point at which public debate, in this case background political debate, around an issue becomes so intense that it moves that discussion from debate to issue.

The issue then moves through a number of phases: 

Initiation – academics or scientists research an area of uncertainty.

Interpretation – experts examine the data produced and interpret it for the media.  The trigger normally hovers somewhere between these first two stages.

Implication – commentators articulate a clear or perceived threat, identify a victim and expose a possible culprit.

Ignition – public campaigning creates probability in the implication and the tipping point is reached.

Influencing – The lobbying of policy makers begins.

Imposition – Regulations are introduced (Regester and Larkin, 1997). 

At the point of imposition, the issue is supposed to depressurize.  But in the Brexit debate, that’s not happening.  

The whole point of successful issues management is to be able to control the narratives inherent in the debate around an issue so that it doesn’t become a crisis.  Again, in this instance, that’s not happening either.

There are many narratives involved in Brexit.  But if we look specifically at the debates involving underlying narratives of empire, I think we can analyse Brexit from an issues management perspective as follows:

Initiation – For decades there has been dissent in the conservative party over the place of the UK within Europe.  This has been exacerbated through media stories appealing to concepts of national identity, for example the construction of Cornish Pasties[3] or protected status for Cheshire Cheese.[4] Prior to 2011, politicians lobbied for a referendum with no success.  

In December 2011, exasperated with the demands of his backbenchers which were amplified by the Eurozone crisis, Prime Minister David Cameron moves to protect ‘British Sterling,’ our historic national currency, by proposing to repatriate certain financial services powers to the UK.  The rejection of this proposal by the European Council on 9 December led to the Cameron veto of the proposed EU treaty and its replacement instead with the European Fiscal Stability Treaty.[5]   The trigger point is reached. 

Interpretation – Various ‘experts’ produce different sets of data and different narratives positing potential scenarios of Brexit.  These include a Leave world where Britain again rises in ascendency through world trade, and a Remain world where Britain entirely collapses without EU support.  There is little clarity in the expert opinion offered and a great deal of public confusion. 

I would present two opinions of this stage of the debate.  One, reclaiming the British empire was initially a minor narrative and only became significant later.  And two, part of the reason it became significant is that the public were presented with a doom narrative.  

We know, from years of expenditure on climate change, drink driving, public health and charity contribution research, that doom narratives don’t work.  Instead, Remain’s narrative of confusion and destruction created a vacuum, into which it was very easy to inject a simple, clear narrative of reclaiming a British identity; re-establishing an imagined British community to stand against the expansionist machinations of the illusionary EU empire.  

Implication – The space in public consciousness created by doom and confusion is at this stage filled with concepts of ‘taking back control’ of our borders, appealing to nostalgic constructions of British ascendancy.  

Parts of the media identify foreign ‘others’ as responsible for crime waves, housing shortages, job shortages, overuse of public resources.  Both Leave and Remain are in full swing with counter narratives, but there are still too many victims and too many competing agendas and narratives to create a definitive tipping point.  

Ignition – Leave have a campaigning brainwave.  They find a single victim, a single ideograph to encapsulate narratives of loss of empire, victimization by the EU and abuse by foreigners.  The NHS.  

Formed at the very moment of loss of empire, the NHS represents nostalgia for a Better Britain.  It is intrinsically linked to concepts of what Britain did when it was ‘Great;’ to Hattie Jacques as ‘nursey’ in popular culture, to Windrush nurses in actual culture.[6]  It is what management consultant Elizabeth Consalvi called “the last jewel of the British Empire,”[7] lovingly adulated as a “wonder” by Danny Boyle in the opening ceremony to the 2012 London Olympics.[8]

And it was under attack.  “Our NHS” was under attack from EU bureaucrats and foreign health tourists, squandering its resources.  

Whether Leave promised to devote ￡350million a week to the NHS if successful was immaterial. The point was they had identified an ideal victim, an ideograph of British nostalgia for ascendancy, and the tipping point was reached.  

In this narrative, fighting for Brexit meant saving the NHS.  Sound familiar?

Those who took on this mantle even had a catchy name – the ‘Brexiteers’ – a valiant vanguard akin to ‘Musketeers’ – an ideograph of French empire synonymous with libertarianism and the battle against evil politicians.  Clearly, this narrative won.

The remaining parts of the model are pretty straight forward.  Remain didn’t learn from their narrative mistakes and never moved away from ‘Project Fear.’  Then 2016 happened and we reached the stage of influencingwhere sector lobbyists and public affairs practitioners moved in, a trade deal of sorts was reached and then Brexit itself was imposed at the beginning of 2021.  In theory, the issue should then depressurize and become dormant.  And that should really be the end of the story.  

But its not.

Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.  So wrong, infact, that what should now be a dormant issue has instead become a rapidly escalating crisis. 

By positioning the NHS as THE ideograph of Brexit, the Leave campaign have created a monster.  And a monster of empire to boot.  The core narrative of British freedom, the right to control our own destiny, the right to decide our own laws, the narrative of individualism, was focused upon ‘saving the NHS.’ 

But the ideal has gone wrong.  The pandemic has derailed the ideograph of the NHS as the emblem of Leave.  Suddenly it does not stand for freedom, liberty and a glorious new world free from EU constraint, but for restrictions, compliance, collectivism.

And the Brexiteers have reacted with rage.  

We are still in the early stages of the disinformation crisis over Covid, but we do know that The Brexit Party has spearheaded online campaigns to discredit the NHS’s response to the pandemic.[9]  Brexit commentators such as Toby Young openly disparage attempts to control the virus and share fake pictures of empty hospital beds[10] while Nigel Farage has relaunched the Brexit Party as Reform UK, focusing on the response to Covid.

Professor Usherwood from University of Surrey argues that Covid is too limited a focus for Farage’s new party as the virus itself is too transient.[11]  I think this misses the point.  It is not Covid that is now the enemy.  

The great betrayer, the ideograph that promised a new dawn of empire and failed to deliver, is the NHS.  

[1] Heath, R., (1997), Strategic Issues Management, Organisations and Public Policy Challenges, New York: Sage

[2] Regester, M, & Larkin, J., (1997). Risk Issues and Crisis Management, Gainsville: IPR

[3] Lingham, A., (2018), https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/21/cornish-pasties-brexit-will-stop-eu-crimping-our-style, 21 Sep 2018

[4] Cheshire Live, (2011), https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/eu-protects-cornish-pasties-not-5195236, 3 Mar 2011

[5] Pruitt, S., (2019), https://www.history.com/news/the-history-behind-brexit, 20 Jun 2019

[6] Bonner, K., (2020), https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/windrush-and-the-nhs-an-entwined-history/, 22 Jun 2020

[7] Consalvi., E. (2014), https://www.wcomc.org/jany31-5, 22 Jan 2014

[8] The Times, (2012), https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01b7461, 28 Jan 2012

[9] Tice, R., (2020), https://www.facebook.com/brexitpartyuk/videos/3733123240103785, 23 Dec 2020

[10] Mellor, J., (2020), https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/as-ambulances-queue-up-with-covid-patients-toby-young-tweets-fake-pic-of-empty-icu-beds/30/12/, 30 Dec 2020

[11] Usherwood, S., (2020) https://ukandeu.ac.uk/is-lockdown-the-new-brexit/, 30 Nov 2020