Reverting trajectories? : UKIP’s organisational and discursive change after the Brexit referendum

Abstract

The article focuses on the transformation of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) after the 2016 Brexit referendum. It describes how, after securing its chief political demand, UKIP opened up to grassroots far-right politics and assesses whether this strategy involved a concomitant shift towards a more radical discourse. Against a backdrop of organisational change, the findings refine the notion that a far-right turn within its ranks led to a significant shift in the (online) communication of the party towards issues like immigration, Islam, and gender. Indeed, these issues were mostly ‘outsourced’ to the cultural wing of the party, War Plan Purple. The article therefore critically links changes in UKIP’s organisation with shifts in online communication, adding new insights into the unorthodox politics and forms of mobilisation of the far right.