Simon Weaver - The Rhetoric of Brexit Humour: Comedy, Populism and the EU Referendum

Since 2016 there has been an outpouring of humour, comedy and satire on the United Kingdom's EU Referendum and decision to leave the EU, or Brexit. This book examines the relationship between Brexit and its comedy, exploring how Brexit and comedy are connected in both Leave and Remain discourse.

It argues that both populism and comedy are rhetorical in nature and so are linked through their semantic structure and communicative potential. Considering the incongruities that Brexit presents for British society, the author analyses the populism that has emerged from those incongruities in the form of ironic, ambiguous and dichotomous discourse. Through the analysis of a range of comedy on the EU Referendum and Brexit, including material from stand-up and situation comedy, and political satire of various types, The Rhetoric of Brexit Humour examines the way in which comedy acts as a rhetoric that draws on, supports and attacks the discourses of Brexit. This provides not just an advance in our understanding of political satire but also a clearer description of the nature of populism.

This book will appeal to sociologists, political scientists, media and communications scholars, and anyone interested in Brexit, populism and comedy.

Simon Weaver is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Brunel University London, UK. He is also the author of The Rhetoric of Racist Humour.

First published 2022

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2022 Simon Weaver

The right of Simon Weaver to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN: 9780367350987 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781032100708 (pbk)

ISBN: 9780429329715 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780429329715

Typeset in Times New Roman

by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

Much of this book was written in the unusual circumstances of the 20202021 Covid-19 restrictions in the UK and I thank our children Annabelle, Jacob and Kassian for providing ideal conditions for writing with the presence of almost persistent noise, disruption, chaos and laughter. Thanks go to Louise, my parents and her parents for their support, encouragement and helpful suggestions in relation to this project. I would like to extend thanks to the following friends and colleagues for discussions and comments on the ideas and text at various times over the past four years: Jennalee Donian, Tim Hughes, Sharon Lockyer, Ral Prez and Hauke Riesch. At Routledge, I would like to thank the editors who worked with me on this book, Alice Salt and Neil Jordan, for providing clear advice and assistance throughout, and for making the process straightforward. This book draws on two earlier and much shorter pieces on Brexit, comedy and irony. Thanks and acknowledgement are given to Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield) for allowing the inclusion of some of the material from my chapter Brexit Irony on The Last Leg and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Critiquing Neoliberalism through Caricature, in The Joke is On Us: Political Comedy in (Late) Neoliberal Times (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018), edited by Julie A. Webber, and to Taylor & Francis for allowing the inclusion of some of the material from my article Brexit Tricksters and the Reconstruction of Taboo: Populism, Irony and Satire in Post-Referendum Britain, Comedy Studies, 10(2), 2019, 154166.

DOI: 10.4324/9780429329715-1

Populism is a difficult, slippery concept. It lacks the features that would make it more tangible. Rooted in it are characteristics that render it quintessentially mercurial.

Indeed, this irresistible motion is one of the key features of comedy, which is why it seems so difficult to pin down with concepts and definitions.

Alenka Zupani (2007: 3)

If populism is a slippery concept, and comedy is difficult to pin down, the two may have something in common. Humour and comedy are formed through sign slippage or through the slippage of meaning created by incongruity this is the movement of meaning in language use. If populism is a slippery concept, this suggests that it is semantically elusive. If it is mercurial, its meanings are subject to change, or to slippage too. Both humour and populism may, semantically, avoid complete or literal definition or application. From these observations, humour, comedy and populism are conceivable through rhetoric. Their rhetoric is the production of tropes that both create and carry meaning a mode of persuasion from the elusiveness of their language. They are engagements with incongruity, ambiguity, ambivalence or with the semantic non-fit of text and the world. This book examines that connection in relation to Brexit.

This book considers the funniness of Brexit. What does it mean to mock, with humour, those that have different views on Brexit than your own? What does it mean to create humour from the social realities of Brexit? In recent years, and certainly since the start of the United Kingdom's (UK) European Union (EU) Referendum campaign period from April 2016, and from more than one direction, there has been an outpouring of humour, comedy and satire on the EU Referendum and decision to leave the EU, or Brexit. Some of that humour is tendentious ( Aligned with this, the book also examines the role of humour and comedy in the development of the antithesis of Brexit, which is its anti-populism.