Scotland held a vote on independence on 18 September 2014, with 55 % of the voters rejecting leaving the UK. But, the difficulty was thrust again into the highlight in 2016, when the UK voted to withdraw from the EU, with repeated requires a second Scottish plebiscite rising louder ever since. As in 2014, the commonly accepted (albeit not common) place has been that Westminster’s approval is required to place a referendum on Scottish independence past authorized doubt. The 2 British Prime Ministers (PMs) who held workplace throughout this time (2016–2021), Theresa Might and Boris Johnson, constantly reiterated their opposition to a different referendum and dominated out granting any such consent. In doing so, they employed numerous discourse methods that drew upon anti-independence discourses mobilised within the 2014 referendum marketing campaign but in addition departed from them in a major method. One such key level of departure was the strategic mobilisation of the “now-is-not-the-time” argumentative scheme.
This scheme strategically crammed a specific political perform: to justify inaction and postpone a recent vote sine die. In different phrases, it functioned to hold the message that it’s only proper now (or, to cite, “at the moment”, “proper now” and “simply at this level” for Might, and at “this second”, “proper now”, “now”, “at this of all occasions” and in “the present context” for Johnson) that the second is just not appropriate to rerun the vote. Each PMs intentionally talked at a excessive stage of abstractness, thereby including to the evasiveness of their “now-is-not-the-time” message. Neither specified the that means of “the now second” and when it will come to go. I argue that mobilisation of this delay discourse offered the anti-independence camp with a brand new highly effective rhetorical useful resource and marked a stark distinction to the 2014 marketing campaign, when the timing of the referendum was not questioned.
Having adopted the final orientation of the Discourse Historic Strategy to discourse evaluation, and dealing with a dataset of Might’s and Johnson’s public utterances on the second Scottish referendum, the evaluation revealed 5 predominant narratives deployed by each PMs inside their “now-is-not-the-time” discourse, particularly the 1) narrative of the referendum as a momentary distraction; 2) narrative of the at present undesirable referendum; 3) narrative of the accountability for previous decisions, 4) narrative of recklessness and 5) narrative of the repeated divisions. Whereas narratives 1-3 weren’t current within the 2014 referendum marketing campaign, narratives 4 and 5 had been extra embedded within the earlier discourse.
Seen by a comparative lens, there have been many putting structural similarities within the British prime ministerial constructions of the “now-is-not-the-time” discourse. Each PMs constantly constructed their arguments on a binary logic of divisiveness versus togetherness, chaos versus stability, sensibility versus accountability, and different dichotomies. Principally, each seen the second referendum as a at present loss-imposing motion, and due to this fact used detrimental, fear-based arguments to make their case. In doing so, each employed the technique of othering, with the useful technique of othering marked by an “us–them” particular person deixis. Particularly, they centred on setting up detrimental pictures of the Scottish Nationwide Get together and referendum supporters, systematically portraying them as a distant, antagonistic outgroup, antithetical to the notion of stability and unity and constructed in opposition to the folks’s pursuits. Concurrently, to draw sympathy, each PMs systematically engaged in acts of constructive self-presentation, contrasting themselves sharply to referendum supporters, who had been depicted as reckless and irresponsible. Via their characterisation, each PMs constructed themselves and their governments because the protectors of the folks towards the specter of the second referendum.
On the similar time, there have been additionally quite a few totally different positions expressed vis-à-vis the second Scottish referendum throughout the PM’s “now-is-not-the-time” discourse. Whereas in Johnson’s case the main target was on the SNP’s carelessness and thoughtlessness, Might emphasised the celebration’s remoteness and selfishness. In comparison with Might, Johnson delegitimised the SNP’s alternative of timing by extra continuously utilizing sturdy evaluative adjectives, together with his language tending to be typically harsher and extra dramatic. Having mentioned that, the variations between the 2 circumstances had been relatively minor, with the 2 PMs having managed to create a largely constant (and thus highly effective) argumentative scheme.
I contend that the “now-is-not-the-time” discourse intently reproduced the multi-level complexities, each inside and exterior, of the difficult Scottish independence query and illustrated the PMs’ makes an attempt to neutralise this contested and extremely divisive subject. Exploitation of this communicative sample was handy for the PMs, because it helped them take care of a fragile, acute dilemma and allowed a number of views to co-exist. On the similar time, nevertheless, mobilisation of the referendum delay discourse got here at a value. It’s this explicit discourse that – amongst different issues – contributed to the oft-voiced critique of each PMs’ (and their governments’) approaches to the difficulty of Scottish independence. Such communicative behaviour vis-à-vis the second vote is difficult as it could simply develop into a supply of perplexity, trigger misinterpretation of the PMs’ intentions, and be framed as proof of prime ministerial/governmental negligence, ineptness and irresponsibility.
Notice
The above attracts on the creator’s printed work in British Politics: Not now! Building of the “now-is-not-the-time” discourse of Theresa Might and Boris Johnson vis-à-vis the second Scottish independence referendum: https://hyperlink.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41293-022-00214-x
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