In 2016, the United Kingdom decided in a referendum to leave the European Union. This occurred for multiple reasons; however, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)
played a significant role, with its discourse helping to shape the British public’s perception of the European Union. This thesis employs discourse analysis to examine the party’s rhetoric between 2008 and 2016, with the aim of identifying the main arguments of British Eurosceptics against EU membership. The research finds that a substantial part of the initial argument centres on opposition to the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty without a preceding referendum, based on the assumption that direct democracy is the only true form of democracy. Consequently, UKIP perceives the treaty as imposed and interprets events during
the European financial crisis—particularly the changes of government in Greece and other countries—through this lens of coercion. Over time, this discourse develops into a more general opposition to the policies of the European Union. Finally, this thesis also explores how UKIP exploits specific forms of heuristics among voters in its discourse. The analysis reveals that the discourse employs at least 10 out of the 12 selected heuristics, with particularly strong arguments regarding the use of the fluency heuristic, the “take-the-best” heuristic, and the representativeness heuristic. However, it is more difficult to substantiate the
use of the satisficing and default heuristics.
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