Abstract

Objectives: This paper examines the talk of the leader of a far-right political party following an increase in the party’s polling and some controversial high profile appearances on the BBC. The analysis addresses the rhetorical strategies employed to justify the party’s contentious far-right policies. Design: Discursive analysis is used to identify the arguments and rhetoric that the leader uses in presenting his party as non-racist, despite accusations to the contrary. Methods: A corpus of three BBC interviews was generated during a period of relative electoral success and increased interest in the party (2009-2010). These programmes were Radio Four’s ‘Today’ (8th of June, 2009), BBC One’s ‘Question Time’ (22nd October, 2009), and Radio Five Live’s Breakfast Show (19th April 2010). All interviews were transcribed and discourse analysis was performed. Results: The analysis showed how the party leader uses two interconnected strategies of (1) presenting ‘indigenous British’ people as the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of racism, and (2) blaming this racism not on outside groups, but on an ill-defined ‘ruling elite’. Conclusions: It is argued that these two identified strategies are not distinct and together function in an attempt to present both the party and its leaders not as racist aggressors, but respondents to anti-white racism. As blame is directed to an abstract (white) ruling elite, rather than minority ethnic groups, the strategy deflects/dilutes accusations of racism. We show how attempts to discuss this ‘ruling elite’ are ignored by other presenters in the discussion.