The metaphor of sovereignty in Brexit campaign discourse and the mobilisation of national identity

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The metaphor of sovereignty in Brexit campaign discourse and the mobilisation of national identity

Gulipa Madmarova, Aiburak Shaimkulova, Kanymjan Murzakulova

Received 30.06.2025, Revised 06.11.2025, Accepted 16.12.2025

https://doi.org/10.67524/verus6/1.2025.29

Retrieved from Vol. 1, No. 1, 2025

Pages 29-41

Abstract

The relevance of the study was determined by the intensification of metaphor-based political mobilisation in agitational campaigns aimed at altering a state’s existing sovereignty arrangements. The purpose of the study was to demonstrate the role of linguistic strategies in political mobilisation. The methodology was based on a combination of the conceptual method for establishing the theoretical framework of conceptual metaphor theory, critical metaphor analysis of campaign posters and leaflets, and normative-institutional analysis of official Central Asian discourse. As a result, it was established that the Brexit metaphorical field was organised around mutually reinforcing clusters: “Sovereignty was an object of possession”, “The EU was a limitation”, and “Immigrants were an unrivalled flood”, whose mobilising effectiveness was confirmed by independent voter-motivation data, in which state autonomy was the single most frequently cited reason for voting Leave. Three new metaphoric frames were proposed for Central Asia: “The region was a common home”, “Cooperation was a road”, and “Regional cooperation was a shared dastarkhan”, each grounded in documented material already in the region’s own institutional and cultural discourse and each constructed to encode sovereign authority as intrinsic to national identity rather than as a transferable commodity diminished by cooperation. An isolation-orientated metaphorical field, however cognitively efficient, appears to be associated with the material costs documented in the Brexit case, whereas an integration-orientated field grounded in a population’s own discursive resources can mobilise cooperation without requiring the surrender of national identity. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of a comparative matrix of metaphorical clusters and a matrix of proposed integration frames, which can be used by political communicators and policymakers in Central Asia to diagnose the discursive resources available for constructing a sovereignty-preserving narrative of regional cooperation

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Suggested citation
Madmarova, G., Shaimkulova, A., & Murzakulova, K. (2025). The metaphor of sovereignty in Brexit campaign discourse and the mobilisation of national identity. Journal of Discourse Analysis & Critical Studies, 1(1), 29-41. https://doi.org/10.67524/verus6/1.2025.29