Fighting fire with fire: Mainstream adoption of the populist political style in the 2014 Europe debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage

Abstract

Advancing the concept of populism as a political style, this study compares the debate performances of two British party leaders, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, as they clashed in a pair of televised debates over Britain’s European Union (EU) membership leading up to the 2014 European Parliament elections. The argument is tested that if under certain conditions, mainstream politicians will adopt a populist style although retaining a non-populist agenda. A mixed-methods approach combines quantitative text analysis with a qualitative rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how the populist and non-populist style can be distinguished and compared systematically. The results suggest that Clegg, while maintaining a non-populist ideology, adopts a populist style after losing the first debate. Farage’s communication style, conversely, remains stable to the point of statistical significance. This suggests that one explanatory factor of populists’ success is the consistency of their message and rhetorical delivery, bolstering their perceived authenticity among voters.