“There is a Wonderfully Contrary Spirit Among the British People”

This chapter presents a comparative study of Remain and Leave discourses, investigating how both sides represent the national population in their efforts to rebrand the nation. It shows that conservative speakers on both sides of the debate attempted to rebrand the nation by constructing visions of a homo Britannicus as well as the nation's present role vis-a-vis the European Union. The chapter discusses national identity and its connection to nation branding. It provides a brief discussion of the adjective “British” in the Conservative corpus followed by a more detailed analysis of concordance lines for the collocations “the British public/people”, as these allow an insight into salient elements of national identity underlying the nation brand. Nation branding is conceived as a strategy to differentiate a nation and give it competitive edge on international markets, while appeals to national identity can mobilize voters.