Take back control

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"Take back control", or sometimes "let's take back control", was a British political slogan associated with the Brexit referendum, popularised by the Vote Leave campaign. It was used by supporters of Brexit, Britain's withdrawal from the European Union. The slogan implied that Britain's sovereignty, ability to make its own laws and ability to control its borders had been lost due to its membership of the EU and would return after withdrawal. It has been associated with anti-immigration sentiment. [1] [2] [3] [4] Created by then director of Vote Leave Dominic Cummings, [5] it is cited as one of the "three word slogans" that have been used frequently in British politics. [4] [6]

Use

The slogan was present from the launch of the Vote Leave campaign at its headquarters on 20 February 2016, at which John Whittingdale, Theresa Villiers, Michael Gove, Chris Grayling, Iain Duncan Smith and Priti Patel posed behind a banner reading "let's take back control". [7]

In January 2023, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer used the term, stating that the slogan was "really powerful, it was like a Heineken phrase ... it got into people's heads," and that "the control people want is control over their lives and their communities." He put forward that Labour would "embrace the take back control message, but we'll turn it from a slogan into a solution." Following this, he made a promise of a "take back control bill" which he said would devolve more powers to local communities. [8] [9]

Meaning and effectiveness

A main message of the slogan was its support for the restoration of a lost British sovereignty that its supporters believed had been taken by the nation's membership of the European Union. [1] Through the adoption of the "take back control" slogan, sovereignty became instrumental aspect of the Vote Leave campaign. [2] According to Andrew Gamble, the slogan portrayed "a vision of Britain as once again an independent country in full control of its laws, its borders, and its money". Gamble has compared the term in this sense to the American slogan used by Donald Trump, "Make America Great Again". [1]

Another main message interpreted within the slogan is the regaining of control of the borders of the United Kingdom. [4]

More generally, the slogan symbolized a return to Britain's past. Some academics have argued that the slogan is linked to Britain's imperial past. [10] Jeremy Fox for OpenDemocracy has argued that it "carried an emotional appeal to the English founded on their cultural heritage – just as a similar emotion surely appealed to those Scots who, in voting for independence from the UK in 2014, bore in their veins the widely-resented 1707 Act of Union with England." [11] Jack Black has argued that the slogan "provided a prism through which UK-EU relations could be projected through English anxieties regarding its imperial decline." [10]

Criticism

The slogan received frequent criticism in terms of its central sovereignty argument. The director of think tank Chatham House wrote in June 2016 that it was "an empty slogan unless doing so improves prospects for British citizens. In an increasingly interdependent world, Britain will be better off pooling discrete areas of its sovereign power with 500 million fellow Europeans than leaving its population of 65 million beholden to the rules and whims of others." [2] Jack Black has argued that "the 'take back control' slogan failed to elaborate on where such sovereignty would lie: with Westminster (the UK government) or with an independent English parliament?" [10]

The slogan also received criticism on account of its political framing of border control and immigration. Katy Hayward put forward in 2020 that the slogan represented "not only the misunderstanding of the nature of territorial sovereignty in the contemporary world [...] but also a misrepresentation of the UK's borders themselves," as it assumed the UK was an "island nation" and "that border control means, simply, immigration control," despite its land connection to the EU through the Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border. She argued that the border's "very existence disrupts the Brexitian conception of the British state." [4]

Others have criticised the use of the term to symbolise a return to the past. John Agnew stated in 2019 that "Brexit has turned out to be so hard to accomplish because in its most publicly expressed aspiration, to take back control to ‘how things were’, it is impossible." [12]

Other uses

In response to the 2025 resignation of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, the Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre stated that "Canadians can take back control of their lives and their country. Take back control of our border. Take back control of immigration. Take back control of spending, deficits and inflation." [13] [14]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Gamble, Andrew (3 August 2018). "Taking back control: the political implications of Brexit". Journal of European Public Policy . 25 (8): 1215–1232. doi:10.1080/13501763.2018.1467952. ISSN   1350-1763. S2CID   158602299.
  2. 1 2 3 Ringeisen-Biardeaud, Juliette (16 March 2017). "'Let's take back control': Brexit and the Debate on Sovereignty". Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. French Journal of British Studies. 22 (2). doi: 10.4000/rfcb.1319 . ISSN   0248-9015.
  3. ↑ Smith, Julie (2019). "Fighting to 'Take Back Control': The House of Lords and Brexit". Brexit and Democracy: The Role of Parliaments in the UK and the European Union. European Administrative Governance. Springer International Publishing. pp. 81–103. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-06043-5_4. ISBN   978-3-030-06042-8. S2CID   159127418.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Hayward, Katy (14 March 2020). "Why it is impossible for Brexit Britain to 'take back control' in Northern Ireland". Territory, Politics, Governance. 8 (2): 273–278. doi:10.1080/21622671.2019.1687328. ISSN   2162-2671. S2CID   216209860.
  5. ↑ "Dominic Cummings: How does he now earn a living?". BBC News . 24 July 2019. Retrieved 22 February 2024.
  6. ↑ Rentoul, John (1 July 2020). "Why are three-word political slogans so effective?". The Independent . Retrieved 22 February 2024.
  7. ↑ Watt, Nicholas (20 February 2016). "Michael Gove and five other cabinet members break ranks with PM over EU". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 22 February 2024.
  8. ↑ Boscia, Stefan (5 January 2023). "Keir Starmer vows post-Brexit 'take back control bill' if Labour wins UK election". Politico . Retrieved 22 February 2024.
  9. ↑ Morton, Becky (5 January 2023). "Keir Starmer embraces Brexit slogan with 'take back control' pledge". BBC News . Retrieved 22 February 2024.
  10. 1 2 3 Black, Jack (3 April 2019). "From mood to movement: English nationalism, the European Union and taking back control". Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research. 32 (2): 191–210. doi:10.1080/13511610.2018.1520080. ISSN   1351-1610.
  11. ↑ Fox, Jeremy (26 January 2017). "England has been resenting Europe for a very long time". OpenDemocracy . Retrieved 22 February 2024.
  12. ↑ Agnew, John (14 March 2020). "Taking back control? The myth of territorial sovereignty and the Brexit fiasco". Territory, Politics, Governance. 8 (2): 259–272. doi:10.1080/21622671.2019.1687327. ISSN   2162-2671.
  13. ↑ Noor Haq, Sana; Chowdhury, Maureen (6 January 2025). "Canada's PM Justin Trudeau announces resignation". CNN . Retrieved 6 January 2025.
  14. ↑ Diver, Tony (6 January 2025). "Canadian conservatives accuse Trudeau's party of 'clinging to power' after prime minister quits". The Telegraph . ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 6 January 2025.
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