Anti-Immigration vs Anti-EU: Political Discourse Analysis of Brexit Decision of The UK

United Kingdom’s relation with the European Union has been always distant. Nevertheless, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, so- called the Brexit decision, has been one of the shocking developments happening in 2016. Prima facia the referendum result shows the electorate’s historic decision to break away from the EU, however it is actually a product of a populist political discourse, which has been shaped by increasing anti- immigrant sentiments in the UK. In this paper, we argue that anti-immigrant discourses behind the Brexit campaign actually are a part of larger historical relations with the European Union. Following on from the literature, we argue that the role of the UK in the EU throughout the history of European integration has always been one of ‘British exceptionalism’. The immigration question, on the other hand, provided an important opportunity for following this exceptionalist policy and leave the EU membership, but it resulted in racist and xenophobic attacks towards all “others” within society. In this process, discourses on the leave side contributed to anti-immigrant feelings and racism within society, although we cannot say this was the main aim. In this paper, we conduct the political discourse analysis developed by Teun van Dijk to examine the campaign of the United Kingdom Independence Party during the referendum process. Taken together, these aspects of the article show how the anti-immigration discourse has contributed to the racist and xenophobic actions, while the main aim has been to finalise the UK’s long- standing distance from the EU.