Tackling Brexit: An idea analysis on the similarities of the 2016 Brexit debate and the debate on foreign players in the Premier League

Abstract: Through an idea analysis, arguments for and against two different policy changes regulating foreign labor in the Premier League will be dissected in order to reveal the nationalist and liberal qualities within them. Arguments made by the Remain and Leave-campaigns during the 2016 Brexit debate, prior to the referendum are also reviewed. The analysis of the empirical material revealed that the two debates, concerning two completely different spheres of society, are almost identical in their ideological features and rhetoric emphasis. However, an analytical discussion utilizing sociological media theory could neither prove nor disprove a causal relationship between the exposure to political arguments made in the foreign player debate and the public’s susceptibility to nationalist arguments during the 2016 Brexit debate, leaving room for future studies.