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Before, after and during the Brexit referendum in the UK immigration has been one of the most popular topics, which politicians discussed in their campaigns. Some of them were supporting the immigrants from the EU, arguing that they were bringing up the economy in the country, helping out the NHS and public services, and supporting the image of the multi- cultural society in the UK. However, others were saying that immigrants were stealing jobs, making unemployment rate higher and salaries lower. Immigration is still a very sensitive topic in the British society, ever since Brexit happened. This master thesis deals with the Discourse analysis of five main British political parties and the way they talked about immigration in their pre-Brexit speeches and campaigns. The main focus of the research is on understanding, whether immigration was indeed as important during the Brexit debate and also whether some of the UK's political parties tried to form a negative image of immigrants in British society. The analysis bases on the Political Marketing theory and is done by collecting the data out of the primary sources (such as speeches, campaigns and web-sites of the parties), and using the qualitative analysis on them.

This thesis looks at five case studies of attempted co-operation between British political parties. The objective is two-fold: to provide an explanatory framework to better understand instances of potential cooperation within the institutional context of British politics, and to build analytical narratives that shed light on the inter- and intra-party dynamics when co-operation between parties has been mooted in Westminster. It addresses a lacuna in the study of British Politics by providing a temporal comparison of understudied examples of attempted co-operation. This comparison inductively draws out what lessons can be learnt about why co-operation is attempted, and the factors that inhibit it. This framework suggests that these examples of mooted co-operation constitute disruptions of the majoritarian norms which inform the British Political Tradition. It does so through a historical institutionalist lens: the cultural norms of Westminster provide a strategic context, but elite political agents strategically interact with this institutional environment. This tradition is manifested through intra-party pressure against co-operation, and a belief that co-operation is electorally disadvantageous. Equally, actors' interpretation of what is possible or desirable within the perceived constraints of Westminster party politics really matters. This suggests a role for situated agency and strategic leadership, captured through the concept of a disruption/defence of existing institutional equilibrium derived from heresthetics. This thesis contends that the discourse around co-operation holds a rhetorical and performative purpose beyond the success or failure of formal co-operation. Institutional context and memory create incentives for actors to either accentuate or downplay the effect of co-operation, but do not determine the shape and aims of cooperation. As a result, both culture and calculus are all-important to inter-party co-operation.