TheCity of London and Brexit (PDF)

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - Region: Western Europe, grade: A, University College London, language: English, abstract: Brexit and its impacts seem to be everywhere, though this paper intends to produce a fresh, unique and hopefully meaningful contribution to the larger field of post-Brexit scholarly works. This paper will analyse different styles of propaganda, discourse and power related to the use of the language before and after British Referendum, particularly about the City of London. More specifically, this work will try to uncover reasons why London with 72% votes for Remain in comparison with overall British results 52% in favour of Leave. The entire topic will be explored through instruments of discourse, power and propaganda with particularly strong emphasis on using the argument about immigration and struggle with EU policies as major arguments for Leave.

This paper will apply concepts of discourse and power introduced by Teun van Dijk, Lakoff's theory political mind and Mooney's works on language, politics and power. Foucault's idea about Parrhesia and texts by Plato should be discussed as well in the context of UK Referendum campaigns and their moral outcome. Additional scholars such as Ossewarde and Fishman will be used to provide theoretical underpinning, but the work will be mainly based on primary sources, data collection and critical analysis. Abovementioned theories and concepts will be applied to the Brexit campaign and why specific rhetoric techniques and tools of propaganda succeeded or failed in the City of London and how the discourse affected and shaped various London boroughs and communities. Moreover, both Remain and Leave campaigns will be analysed with particular emphasis on rhetoric styles, forms, genres and mind control of the Londoners.

This paper will also try to explain why British citizens living in London responded negatively to UKIP's strong anti-immigration propaganda how it is connected to identify and resists propaganda or fallacies. Hopefully, this work will be able to clarify London's pitiful, but important role in the transformation of vertical power into horizontal control.