There are two underlying forces in debate, and the formation of political discourse in general. These two forces dictate the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of debate, and in turn can determine the ideas that shape the political narratives of subsequent generations. The first concerns the striving for objective truth. The second relates to the linguistic skills and mental adaptability of a debate participant.
To understand these two forces, and the way in which they interact, one must take them each at their extremes. If I am debating with you that Poland is an island, no matter how fluid my speech or engrossing my words, I will be denounced by the audience as a crackpot, and not fit to engage in future events. Conversely, if I am a weak debater, and a generally dreary speaker, I could be outclassed by an opponent with a far weaker objective argument, yet holding that linguistic and ‘framing’ skill to make his views best known.
A key part of a debate, highlighted by the second force, is the notion of ‘the frame’. A frame encapsulates the way one seeks to portray their view of reality and thus determine the objective consensus over an idea or set of ideas. If you wish to see how ‘the frame’ works in action look no further than the current Brexit debate.
On 23 June 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union by 51.89% for Leave to 48.11% for Remain, a margin of 3.78%. A divisive build up to the poll saw the death of Labour MP and Remain advocate Jo Cox at the hands of a far-right extremist, the appearance of the infamous ‘350 million’ Boris Bus and the machinations of a highly coordinated, successful campaign on behalf of the Leave’s team leader Dominic Cummings, now Boris Johnson’s political adviser in Number 10. In the three years that have followed the Brexit vote, Britain has still not left the political bloc, with previous Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal being voted down three times in parliament and the deadline for exiting being extended from March 29th to April 12th, and now October 31st. Since assuming power, new Prime Minister Boris Johnson has sought to take the UK out by the Halloween deadline, giving the public a ‘do or die’ pledge for Britain’s exit, yet it remains to be seen if the UK will leave by then.
Turning to the language surrounding Brexit, the current debate centres around two main blocks, the ‘Leave’ block and ‘Remain’ block, that are each trying to make their case through interpreting the current political reality around using their own ‘frame’.
For instance with Boris Johnson’s (failed) first prorogation of parliament, his frame concerning his motivations for this decision settled around his overt argument that the government needed this time for policy planning, and his implicit argument that even if Brexit did factor into this decision, it was perfectly within the right of the government to go for the prorogation. The ‘Remainer’ frame asserted that the prorogation was illegal and even if it were technically legal it still represented a major breach of political courtesy and propriety.
Looking into what happened after the Supreme Court’s verdict gives us a clue as to the importance of the frame in regard to its interaction with power. After being nullified by the Supreme Court, Boris’ frame was destroyed, whilst the Remainer frame was vindicated. It did not matter that Boris held frame in still arguing for the need for prorogation and its resulting legitimacy from this (see his comments on him “highly disagreeing” with the result), as the fundamental power dynamics over prorogation had shifted.
Again we return to the objective truth-linguistic skill/frame interaction that is present at the heart of debate. This is seen in the fact that the ‘Poland is an island’ argument example is not ineffective because it is a lie, it is ineffective because of its interaction with the reality of the debate around it. To elaborate further, think of such an argument being put forward, not in the context of a regular student debate, but within one of the most famous passages in literature: the climax of George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’.
This climactic passage involves the torture of protagonist Winston Smith at the hands of O’Brien: a menacing political operator at the heart of the ruling totalitarian administration ‘IngSoc’. During this torture Winston has his view of reality shifted to believe the starkest untruths: ranging from ‘two plus two equals five’ to denying seeing a picture of three political opponents of IngSoc, despite previously holding the same picture in his hand. In this passage, the assertion that ‘Poland is an island’ would flow seamlessly into O’Briens persuasive, torture-driven tactics. This returns one to the fact that the frame only exists in light of the power dynamic that is present within a debate or political interaction.
This again takes us back to Brexit and the current discourse surrounding it. Two underlying truths shape the debate and underpin its very existence. The first is that ‘Leave’ won the referendum. The second is that no one knows what the future holds after ‘Brexit’ is achieved. If Remain had won, we would not be having this current deal. Likewise, if we knew for certain that Brexit would destroy the UK economy, we would also not be discussing the issue.
To escape the convictions of the Brexit debate is a near-impossible task. However, what both the Leave and Remain sides can appreciate is the fascinating implications of this current debate. However dangerous, this past month has unravelled before us the interaction of government, parliament, monarchy and court and in turn revealed the complex interplay of political argument and action.
This is where the idea of a ‘Second Referendum’ comes into play. This is the key topic of a debate held by the LSE Debate Society on Thursday 10th October: one Richard Braine (UKIP leader) and Lord Adonis (a ‘Remainer’ peer) will argue over. As with prorogation, we can again split this argument into competing frames. For Leave the EU referendum was decisive in highlighting the UK’s desire for Brexit, whilst a ‘Second Referendum’ goes against the ‘losers consent’ notion of democracy in allowing Remain to have a rerun of the decision. For Remain the Brexit result was not decisive, the Leave vote was made up of many ‘anti-establishment’ voters who never believed Brexit would occur, whilst the current planning for Brexit suggests the whole thing will be a disaster.
Debate, at its best, is an art form, likeable to a symphony: different tracks of personality, conviction and argument playing simultaneously. In analysing the development of debate between figures such as Richard Braine and Thomas Cole we not only get to the heart of what drives such figures and their views, but also are able to understand the forces behind the shaping of a discourse that carries implications for the UK. Not only economically, but also in evaluating what it means to be British.
Only in attaining ‘ego death’ in the realm of Brexit analysis can we truly be free. Not only this, but in our freed perspectives we are able to view debate with a richer lens: one that not only widens our knowledge, but reveals to us what makes ‘the art of debate’ so fundamental to our understanding of ourselves.
