The Brexit Theatre and its linguistic relations

Brexit is about dominance in the public sphere and in this game “language” plays also an important role. For people in other countries, especially in the EU the reactions of the UK government and also of (parts of) the population has been met with puzzlement and total incomprehension: Boris Johnson a campaigner for Brexit is characterized as mad or as a gambler (Spiegel online, international) using (Trumpish) game tactis (Larry Elliot@Guardian, with special consideration to economics). But the tactics of Johnson is not without reasonable calculation, because (important) parts of the public sphere is supporting Johnson: blaming Jeremy Corbyn to be "a chicken" or "a coward" (The Sun) is of course supporting the Brexit stance of Johnson. This picture (Spiegel online) shows headlines of British press, after announcing the suspension of parliament (end of August), subtitling (in German): "The British Press is criticizing PM B. Johnson, which is indeed not entirely the case, reading carefully the (Guardian) comments on the same matter. Important parts of the British press are not hostile to political tactics of B. Johnson fueling Euroscepticism in the UK (Wikipedia) and using (partly) fake news about the EU (Polly Toynbee@Guardian) for his political agenda. How the UK and EU relations will develop in the end, is not the topic of this blog post rather the vital role for English (as lingua franca) for building "European Public Spheres" (book-link). The topic (English) language is not included in the book and plays (almost) no role in the discourse about the Brexit. One telling example about the issue language and Brexit can be found in Politico and shows how language is very often perceived as part of the culture of a nation and the allusion to "Waterloo" in post above isn't subtle at all. These nationalistic patterns leading in it unreflecting parts to stereotypes and in its more agressive parts (Boris Johnson on Youtube) to situations like the Brexit. And the real stunning aspects of the Video above is not the role B. Johnson is playing, his career shows (Wp) that (partly) agressive behaviour is part of his tactics, to orchestrate himself as a alpha-male (Wp).  Real stunning are the reactions to Video framing his behaviour as something laudable. Of course it could be said: Politics is about power. But in dangerous times Politics should be also about framing power and the language of power is playing a crucial in this.