Brexit, the Press and the Territorial Constitution

Abstract

Brexit has unveiled previously hidden aspects of United Kingdom (UK) society, law and politics. It provides a valuable opportunity to investigate the social reception of law, and in particular the mediation of the law and constitution in the press. The distinctive constitutional arrangements and histories of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England have given rise to different territorial interpretations of the UK state. These asymmetries have parallels in the UK’s territorial media landscape, yet we have little understanding of how this landscape contributes to constitutional discourses. This article offers quantitative content and thematic analysis of UK-wide media coverage of major court judgments which have served as critical junctures in the Brexit process. The analysis reveals striking territorial variation in the volume and substance of coverage. Here, the media appears to reinforce divergent understandings of the constitution: while English reporting chimed with a more unitary account of the constitution, reporting elsewhere was more consistent with a vision of the UK as union-state. In the light of these findings, we argue that media analysis can make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the law and the constitution.

The Anglo-British imaginary and the rebuilding of the UK’s Territorial Constitution after Brexit - Unitary State or Union State?

“…Our focus on territoriality clarifies the constitutional assumptions shared by the Anglo-British imaginary, assumptions otherwise occluded in the textbook tradition and wider constitutional debates. Typically revealed only in fragments, these shared territorial assumptions allow the Angl0-British imaginary to encompass both the Diceyean orthodoxy and its English critics (Murray and Wincott 2020, Davies and Wincott 2021, Wincott, Davies and Wager 2021. Equally, the Anglo-British imaginary has long co-existed with distinct peripheral visions -sometimes including alternative or overlapping imaginaries -of the multi-national UK state.…”

Crisis, what crisis? Conceptualizing crisis, UK pluri-constitutionalism and Brexit politics

“…Beyond 'material' (Arato, 2012) conceptions of a constitution, some theorists identify its 'mystical' significance (Davies & Wincott, 2020), treating constitutions as a vessel for an imagined community (Anderson, 1983); a constitutional 'imaginary' (Kahn, 2010). The UK's constitutional arrangements are unusual; it may even be their defining feature (on the UK as an exceptional unexceptional state, see Murray & Wincott, 2020).…”