Re-framing free movement in the countdown to Brexit? Shifting UK press portrayals of EU migrants in the wake of the referendum
| Author | James Morrison |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148119851385 |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119851385
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2019, Vol. 21(3) 594 –611
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148119851385
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Re-framing free movement
in the countdown to
Brexit? Shifting UK press
portrayals of EU migrants in
the wake of the referendum
James Morrison
Abstract
This article argues that long-standing press portrayals of economic migrants as threats to Britain’s
economic wellbeing underwent a marked turn immediately after the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum.
Following an intense campaign during which most national newspapers problematised European
Union free movement, the month after the vote saw even ‘Euro-sceptic’ titles shift towards
emphasising the economic costs of ending it. Within six months, however, discourses framing
migrants as ‘invaders’ and/or ‘exploiters’ resurfaced. The article conceptualises the immediate
post-referendum period as one of discursive aftershock, as key actors struggled to absorb the
outcome and newspapers accustomed to years of spoon-feeding with simplistic pro- and anti-
European Union rhetoric scrambled to find fresh sources of newsworthy conflict in a ‘post-war’
climate. In so doing, it contributes to our understanding of the multidirectional complexity of the
agenda-setting process, by showing how shifts in the nature of public debate can help re-frame the
narrative preoccupations of the media.
Keywords
Brexit, discourse, framing, free movement, migrants, newspapers
Introduction
On 16 June 2016 − one week to the day before the referendum on the United Kingdom’s
continued European Union (EU) membership − leading ‘Leave’ campaigner Nigel
Farage unveiled a poster that crystallised the febrile anti-immigrant sentiment simmer-
ing beneath much of the mainstream newspaper coverage leading up to the vote. The
now-notorious ‘Breaking Point’ poster depicted a stream of dark-skinned men heading
towards the camera, above a strapline stating, ‘The EU has failed us all’ and an entreaty
to voters to ‘break free of the EU and take back control’ (Stewart and Mason, 2016). For
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK
Corresponding author:
James Morrison, School of Creative and Cultural Business, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen AB10 7QB,
UK.
Email: j.g.morrison@rgu.ac.uk
851385BPI0010.1177/1369148119851385The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsMorrison
research-article2019
Original Article
Morrison 595
critics, the poster was invidious both because it resembled footage from a Nazi propa-
ganda film and contained a visual lie with a potentially pernicious impact on an historic
vote then just days away (Looney, 2017; Morrison, 2016; Stocker, 2017). Far from
depicting EU nationals exercising their free movement rights to migrate between mem-
ber states − a source of net inward migration that a decision to leave the Union would
empower Britain to curtail − it showed asylum-seekers from outside Europe, displaced
during the ongoing Mediterranean refugee crisis, crossing the Croatia-Slovenia border a
year earlier (Stewart and Mason, 2016).
Though an outlier, in terms of how far it pushed anti-(im)migration discourse, in
other respects the poster was merely the starkest manifestation yet of a strand of anti-EU
debate presenting the United Kingdom’s relationship with the Union as one of plundered
and plunderer: with Britain cast as a vassal state whose financial over-generosity and
porous borders had left it vulnerable to invasion and exploitation by opportunistic
migrants from parasitical poorer countries (e.g. Balabanova and Balch, 2010; Balch and
Balabanova, 2016; Philo et al., 2018). During the months leading up to then Prime
Minister David Cameron’s decision to call the referendum, in May 2015, free movement
had been systematically toxified in political rhetoric as an issue with a supposedly nega-
tive real-world impact on UK communities, particularly those still suffering the long-
term consequences of post-1980s deindustrialisation (Moir, 2017). To placate their core
supporters, successive governments had used migrants as lightning rods to justify every-
thing from pledges to create ‘British jobs for British workers’ (Brown, 2007) to crack-
downs on ‘welfare tourists’ supposedly responsible for pressures on public services
actually caused by years of fiscal austerity (Balch and Balabanova, 2016; Marangozov,
2016; Watson, 2016).
As several studies observe, this dominant discourse had been strengthened by the con-
flicted contributions to the debate of potential counter claims-makers, such as opposition
parties (e.g. Balch and Balabanova, 2016; Smith, 2008). The Labour Party’s failure to
mount a sustained and unequivocal defence of positive contributions made by EU
migrants to the United Kingdom’s economy, public services and cultural life had embold-
ened anti-migrant forces in the ‘growingly hostile and alienating’ rhetoric they used to
depict incoming migrants as a ‘“bad” out-group’ threatening the wellbeing of the “good”
in-group’ represented by British citizens (Ágopcsa, 2017). All the while, such discourses
had been widely echoed, and stoked, by a popular press attuned to the commercial appeal
of us-and-them narratives, including those happy to conflate intra-EU migration with
immigration generally (Berry et al., 2016; Blinder and Allen, 2016) and/or extend con-
cerns about its socioeconomic impact to securitised fears about terrorism (Huysmans,
2000). Moreover, such discourses proved so pervasive that they permeated beyond
Britain’s borders − including to countries that were targets of their opprobrium. A com-
parative analysis of press frames in the United Kingdom and Bulgaria by Balabanova and
Balch (2010: 394) showed how Britain’s ‘dominant policy frame of “managed migra-
tion”’ − a ‘dehumanised’ transactional view of ‘migration control’, based on the relative
‘costs/benefits’ to ‘the economy or the welfare state’ − was imported by Bulgarian papers,
which directly echoed (and implicitly endorsed) its preoccupation with the impact of
migrants on British workers, schools and housing.
This article revisits the issue of how EU migration has been framed in the UK press in
the context of a succession of snapshots during the immediate life-cycle of the 23 June
2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum: the week leading up to the vote, the period from 24 June to 23
July inclusive, and the equivalent month between 24 November and 23 December. In so
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