ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s populist discourse before and after the British EU referendum 2016, with a focus on the nomination strategies behind the ‘people’, traditionally considered the key signifier of populism. The chapter argues that Corbyn uses the deeply divisive nature of the EU referendum to construct a Manichean vision of social relations within Britain in which, in true populist fashion, the elite (the ‘few’) have deprived the people (the ‘many’) of political and economic power. Corbyn’s discourse shows that ‘the people’ can embody specific ideological interests, especially in the context of the 2016 EU referendum.
