Populism and the British Far-right:

A Critical Discourse Study examining the psycho-discursive construction of Tommy Robinson as an anti-establishment, working class 'Hero'.

'Tommy Robinson' (real name Stephen) has established
himself as the dominant figure in new, evolving milieu of
far-right British politics. Describing himself as a right-wing
activist and journalist, he claims to represent the 'working
class' and is stylised as a defender of British rights and
values, fighting against censorship, the establishment,
and the 'Islamification of Britain'. Through a synthesis of
Kelsey's (2015, 2016) psycho-discursive and Discourse-
Mythology Approach (DMA) and Wodak's Discourse-
Historical Approach (DHA) (2015), this study will
investigate how affect, myth and storytelling contribute to
the construction of 'Tommy Robinson' as a populist, antiestablishment
working class 'hero'. It will combine
analysis of media texts with qualitative semi-structured
interviews to investigate the historical, psychological and
socio-cultural complexities of this narrative. It will
consider how Yaxley-Lennon uses populist discourses to
frame and contest British working-class values, and the
challenges faced in refuting his politics of fear,
nationalism and division. It will use a purposive sampling
strategy to select a range of multimodal media texts from
mainstream and alternative media, conducting a
qualitative CDS analysis of competing narratives, texts,
genres and discourses. A snowballing strategy will be
used to identify supporters of Yaxley-Lennon that identify
as 'working class', with media texts from the first stage of
analysis used as prompts to explore interpretations. The
study aims to better understand the complex
psychological and affective mechanisms that are
contributing to the growing acceptance of radical right
discourses and the increasing popularity of figures such
as 'Tommy Robinson'.