7. Brexit and Beyond

This chapter compares the language of the post-Brexit period (based on a 50 million words corpus) with that of the run-up to the EU Referendum and the Scottish Independence Referendum to identify diachronic trends. It finds a noticeable drop-off in racist discourse post-EU Referendum and concerns about immigration alongside changes in the representation of migrants and migration, and articulation of worries about racism. It finds a shift in focus from sovereignty to discussion of democracy and independence. The three corpora track the rise of nationalism from indyref to Brexit, and the development of increasingly divisive and sometimes incendiary language in Parliamentary discourse and elsewhere. The chapter concludes by considering the destructive consequences of using such language and argues that the language we use matters.