Deconstructing Brexit Discourses

This book expands on and complements the burgeoning Brexit literature by placing the UK's vote to leave the EU in its longer, historical and discursive contexts. It examines the embedded Euroscepticism, which has dominated British political discourse onthe European project and the role of the UK within it for at least the last three decades. Brexit was the consequence of a decade's long denigration of the European integration project in the public sphere discourse in which the terrain of discussion, and the conceptual vocabulary of the debate, were set by a dominant, right-wing Eurosceptic discourse. This framed the EU as inherently heterogeneous and antagonistic to the UK. The book examines how ideas of British exceptionalism, which underpin Eurosceptic discourses, are sustained and reproduced and offers an account of their enduring, affective power amongst the British population. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of British, EU and European politics, the media and press, public opinion and political behaviour, and nationalism studies--