‘This is about the kind of Britain we are’

This chapter investigates a corpus of contributions by Conservative MPs in parliamentary debates on EU membership (May 2015 to June 2016). It specifically focuses on narratives about ‘Britishness’ in discussions about the economic and legal consequences of membership. This pronoun ‘we’ was employed by Conservatives on both sides of the debate to construct different in-groups and visions of the UK in Europe. Conceptions of the EU varied between Remain and Leave, while the representations of British identity showed similarities. The findings suggest that Remain MPs undermined their arguments with latent Euroscepticism.