Taking back control? Brexit, sovereignism and populism in Westminster (2015–17)

Abstract

This article analyses the claims for national sovereignty made in the British Conservative and Labour parties. In Britain, national sovereignism has been embedded within an entrenched tradition of Euroscepticism, whereas populist claims have periodically punctuated the discourse of both main parties, before emerging with more vocal tones during the discussion on Brexit. While most sovereigntist claims share some degree of populism, we reserve the populist label for what we identify as explicitly populist claims (as opposed to four other categories of sovereignism). After presenting a historical recall of the main dynamics of sovereigntist claims in British politics, we hypothesise that different types of sovereigntist discourses feature in the major British parties. While 'nationalist-populist' sovereignism should prevail in the Conservative party, we expect 'economic' sovereignism to be the form mainly used by the Labour party. Systematically analysing the debates in the House of Commons on all divisions on the EU from the 2015 General Election to the end of October 2017, we show that significant differences on the use of sovereignist claims exist both within and across British parties. We find that national populist claims dominate among Tory MPs and civic sovereignism prevails over economic sovereignism among Labour members.

Sovereignist wine in populist bottles? An introduction

“…As for the research design, most contributions offer a fine-grained analysis, through a case-study research design, while the comparative study by Basile, Borri and Verzichelli (2020) explores the sovereignist-populist linkage by using European-wide data. Furthermore, some of the articles focus on the 'supply' side of sovereignism and populism (Baldini, Bressanelli, & Gianfreda 2020;Ivaldi & Mazzoleni 2020), thus investigating the nature of the sovereignist discourse in political parties; on the other hand, Basile, Borri, & Verzichelli (2020) and Mueller and Heidelberger (2020) focus on the 'demand' side, by examining, respectively, the determinants of the support for sovereignist claims, and the impact of the support for such claims on voting choices. Finally, Heinisch, Werner and Habersack (2020) focus on both the 'demand' and the 'supply' side, by examining party discourses as well as voting preferences for sovereignist and populist parties in the Austrian case.…”

Governing ‘levelling-up’ in the UK: challenges and prospects

“…the 'red wall') and this was considered to be the Shared Prosperity Fund (also billed as the replacement for EU structural funds) (Brien, 2020). The phrase 'levelling up' became part of the Conservative government's policy language and, as has been the case with other phrases associated with populist politics, has resonance to other well-known political sound bites such as 'take back control' (Baldini, Bressanelli, & Gianfreda, 2020).…”

‘You’re a populist! No, you are a populist!’: The rhetorical analysis of a popular insult in the United Kingdom, 1970–2018

“…However, a potential emphasis from the government on responsibility could also affect this expectation, as the government could accuse the opposition to follow populism instead of having a serious debate. Second, the Conservatives have controlled the British Government for the entire period, and what opponents have defined their populist turn should provide Labour and Liberal Democrats' oppositions with occasions to challenge the Conservatives on this matter (Baldini et al, 2020). In particular, the oppositions should produce more negative and valence references, targeting what they should interpret as the right-wing and nationalist populism of the Conservative Government (March, 2017).…”

“…This hypothesis descends from general considerations about election times, usually more antagonistic (Nunnari and Zàpal, 2017), and from the evolution of British elections, which have recently become highly confrontational (Vaccari et al, 2020). Furthermore, the last three general elections (May 2015, June 2017, and December 2019) have been centred on topics tightly linked with populism, in particular the relation with the EU and Brexit (Baldini et al, 2020):…”