May’s Brexit strategy: Playing the Blame Game

By Nikki Gommers

To put it lightly, September 20^th 2018 was not a good day for Theresa May. The Salzburg Summit with the EU leaders resulted in an outright denial of her Chequers proposal, with no new proposal on the table. A defeat for May, according to the media. The next day May gave a televised statement (click here for the transcript). Her wisely chosen words were picked up by the media, and she managed to define the news about the failed summit. She employed a smart PR strategy.

As Vliegenthart & Van Zoonen show, because of their political power, government officials can often define the news. Therefore, the televised statement was May’s chance to alter the narrative about the failed summit.

May’s full speech the day after the Salzburg summit. Credits: Statisma News 

Furthermore, Nord & Olsson emphasise that successful framing in political crises depends on the selection of certain frames, which should match the logic of the media. May’s PR specialists clearly followed this advice.

Frame selection

In the speech, May used two frames, outlined by Nord & Olsson as successful crisis rhetoric. Firstly, she puts the blame of the failed summit on an exogenous actor, the EU, employing the responsibility frame. This allowed her to make authoritative statements towards the EU, such as “they are making a fundamental mistake” and that their proposals were “unacceptable”.

Furthermore, she puts the blame of the lack of progress on the EU. She emphasises that “the EU is still only offering us two options” and that as long as they don’t present their alternatives, “we cannot make progress”. 

May depicted as dissimilar to the EU leaders. Credits: Lisi Niesner/Reuters 

The second frame that May adopts is the morality frame, emphasising certain norms and values. She blames the EU for not following these norms, presenting them as the bad guys. For example regarding values of respect, she seizes the moral high ground by saying: “I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same”.

Reinforcing this superiority, she emphasised the moral value of “the integrity of the UK”, thereby framing the UK as a unified entity, despite divided opinions in Scotland and Northern-Ireland.

Frame matching

The frames employed should match the media’s logic, so the media are more likely to cover the preferred narrative.

Credits: Sky News

May’s ‘Unified UK’ frame, combined with the EU as an exogenous threat, gels well with the predominant narrative deployed by the media. Hawkins shows that the British media refer to the EU as a foreign power that threatens the British interest. Conversely, the UK is portrayed as a homogenous actor with a shared interest. In short, May matches her narrative with the media.

Additionally, May’s speech meets the important news value of conflict. She clearly creates two opposing sides: the UK versus the EU, caught up in a difficult divorce. This fight is likely to receive media attention in the sensational British press.

And indeed, the newspapers did pick up her narrative: almost all headlines refer to her demand for respect, (e.g. The Guardian, Bloomberg, and The Independent). With that, she managed to defy the frame of a humiliated prime-minster, and construct herself as a powerful leader.

Nikki Gommers is a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Leiden University and has worked for several campaigns of the PvdA (Dutch Labour Party), as well as she is a keen advocate for a less-divided society.