Reporting The Road To Brexit

This edited collection brings together leading international scholars to explore the connection between Brexit and the media. The referendum and the activism on both sides of the campaign have been of significant interest to the media in the UK and around the world. How these factors have been represented in the media and the role of the media in constructing the referendum narrative are central to assisting the development in our understanding of how UK and global democracy is being manifested in contemporary times. This book explores these topics through presenting a wide range of perspectives from research conducted by leading international scholars, and concludes with an assessment of the potential democratic and international implications for the future. By grappling with a highly important and controversial topic in a comparative and varied way, the volume contributes to theoretical debates about the nature and role of the media in complex social, political and cultural contexts.

This book traces how right-wing newspapers in Britain helped shape British public opinion about the European Union over the course of the 20 years preceding the EU referendum in June 2016. The author argues that newspapers such as the Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express have been effectively waging a long-term propaganda war, with the distortions and borderline fake news presented one of the factors that helped secure the narrow majority for Brexit. Written by an EU insider, the book presents hard facts and debunks the core myths on EU laws, exorbitant budget contributions and uncontrolled immigration, and contributes to the broader debate on the importance of the press for democracy.

Through a focus on media and political discourses both before and after the UK 2016 EU Referendum, this volume provides a set of comprehensive, empirically based analyses of Brexit as a social and political crisis. The book explores a variety of context-dependent, ideologically driven, social, political, and economic imaginaries that have been attached to the idea/concept of Brexit in the UK and internationally. The volume’s wider contribution has three dimensions. First, it provides evidence of how the Brexit referendum debate and its immediate reactions were discursively framed and made sense of by a variety of social and political actors and through different media. Second, the contributors show how such discourses were reflexive of the wider path-dependent historical and political processes which have been instrumental in pre-defining the key pathways along which Brexit has been articulated. Third, the book identifies key patterns of national and international framing in order to discover the key, recurrent discursive trajectories in the ongoing process of Brexit – including after UK’s formal departure from the EU in January 2020 – while putting forward an agenda for its further, in depth and systematic analysis in, in particular, politics and the media. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Critical Discourse Studies.

This collection explores British attitudes to Continental Europe that explain the Brexit decision. Addressing British-European entanglements and the impact of British Euroscepticism, the book argues that Britain is in denial about the strength of its ties to Europe. The volume brings together literary and cultural studies, history, and political science in an integrated analysis of views and practices that shape cultural memory. Part one traces the historical and political relationship between Britain and Europe, whilst Part two is devoted to exemplary case studies of films as well as popular Eurosceptic and historical fiction. Part three engages with border mindedness and Britain’s island story. The book is addressed both to specialists in cultural studies, and a wider audience interested in Brexit.

The Parliamentary Battle Over Brexit provides answers to those who want to understand the bitter arguments that occurred over Brexit, what might have been handled better, and the role that parliament played. Since the 2016 referendum, the hotly contested issue of Brexit has raised fundamental questions about the workings of British democracy. Nowhere was this more true than regarding the role of parliament. This book addresses important questions about parliament's role in the UK constitution, and the impact on this of the Brexit process. While initially intended to re-establish 'parliamentary sovereignty', Brexit wrought significant damage on the reputation of parliament, and the wider culture of UK democracy. Charting the full story of the parliamentary battle over Brexit, Meg Russell and Lisa James show that it wasn't always what it seemed. Based on careful documentary research and extensive interviews with key protagonists, the book explores multiple nail-biting moments, procedural innovations, and political 'what if's'. Drawing on insider accounts, alongside media and parliamentary debates, the book puts the events of Brexit into context and provides a clear and reliable document of record on a complex and disputed story. Ultimately, it argues that Brexit was largely a battle inside the Conservative Party, for which parliament got the blame. Insightful and comprehensive, the book is necessary reading to those with broader interests in British Politics, the culture of UK democracy, and the challenges of populism and democratic 'backsliding'.

An unprecedented political, economic, social, and legal storm was unleashed by the United Kingdom's June 2016 referendum to leave the European Union and the government's response to the vote. After decades of strengthening European integration and independence, Brexit necessitates a deep understanding of its international law implications on both sides of the English Channel in order to chart the stormy seas of negotiating and advancing beyond separation. In Complexity's Embrace, international law practitioners and academics from the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada and the United States look beyond the rhetoric of "Brexit Means Brexit" and "no agreement is better than a bad agreement" to explain the challenges that need to be addressed in the diverse fields of trade, financial services, insolvency, intellectual property, environment, and human rights. The authors in this volume articulate, with unvarnished clarity, the international law implications of Brexit, providing policy makers, commentators, the legal community, and civil society with critical information they need to participate in negotiating their future within or outside Europe. Complexity's Embrace explores the many unprecedented questions about the UK's future trading arrangements. Contributors include Thomas Cottier, Armand de Mestral, Oonagh E. Fitzgerald, David A. Gantz, Markus Gehring, Valerie Hughes, Matthias Lehmann, Eva Lein, Dorothy Livingston, Richard Macrory, Luke McDonagh, Marc Mimler, Howard P. Morris, Gabriel Moss, Helen Mountfield, Federico M. Mucciarelli, Joe Newbigin, Colm O’Cinneide, Damilola S. Olawuyi, Christoph G. Paulus, Maziar Peihani, Freedom-Kai Phillips, Stephen Tromans, Diana Wallis, and Dirk Zetzsche.

Why call a Referendum about staying in the EU? What is the emotional story behind the headlines? Is Westminster too remote from the people making this vote essential? What is the powerful Brexit outcome all about? These are difficult questions but the answers are crucial to understanding the UK Referendum of 2016. In this simply-presented book, both the Leave and Remain sides of the argument are given including many hard-hitting quotes from the voting public. Chapters run from the Crux, Main Players, Perceived Need, Remain Case, Force of History, Leave Case, Campaign, Vote, Day After Review, Looking Ahead and finally Reflection. In an atmosphere of frightening uncertainty and of passionate claims being very debatable, there are many cases of being "economical with the truth". Stories, quotes and ironies are all explored to help see how and why the Leave Side won.