Communicating Policy: A Twitter Analysis of the UK’s EU Settled Status Scheme

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  In Virtual Poster Session: Political Communication Virtual Poster Session II

Abstract

Despite the UK government’s EU Settled Status (EUSS) scheme having been under way since March 2019, many non-UK EU citizens working and living in the UK remain unaware they are required to apply to the scheme to obtain either ‘settled status’ or ‘pre-settled status’. Perhaps even more troubling is that lack of awareness and failure to apply may result in their deportation. Recent findings suggested that one in three East European care workers in the UK are not aware of the scheme and do not know they need to apply (JCWI, 2021), supporting Bulat’s (2019) assessment of the UK government’s assumption that each individual required to apply will be adequately informed and will apply successfully before the deadline is ‘wishful thinking’ (p.2). There is an added assumption that awareness will generate compliance with the application process.

Yet, the scheme remains controversial. EUSS was introduced following the UK-EU withdrawal deal as a means to accommodate those non-UK EU citizens residing in the UK faced with new restrictions to their freedom of movement. Four million applications have been made to the EUSS scheme by non-UK EU citizens (gov.uk, 2020). This exceeds the government’s official statistic of eligibility; this mismatch highlights the concerns of campaigners worried about the number of individuals that are not aware of their eligibility for the scheme, its compulsory nature and the now imminent deadline (Bounds and Staton, 2020). There is particular concern for vulnerable and marginalised individuals falling through the cracks, including carers, the elderly, disabled persons and children in social care (Bulat, 2020; Donskoy, 2018). Others argue that there are significant administrative justice issues related to the digitalised process of the EUSS (Tomlinson, 2020).

Political participation is believed to be increased by social networking sites (SNS) (Stieglitz and Dang- Xuan, 2013) and correspondingly governments and politicians use SNS as a major channel of political communication (Stieglitz et al., 2012). SNS have become increasingly important as sites of political news consumption in recent years (Masip et al., 2018). Therefore, arguably social media analysis has become Essential towards understanding politics.

In the context of the EUSS turning to social media raises questions such as, how are the government communicating the EUSS on SNS? What narratives of the EUSS operate? Are there other narratives present? Counter-narratives? Contestations? Thus, the central research question is “How is the EU Settled Status scheme communicated on social media and what are the implications?”.

The case of the EUSS was selected due to the political salience of the migration-Brexit nexus, the controversial nature of the EUSS policy, and the associated concerns of potential social injustices of EUSS. The micro-blogging platform Twitter was selected being the most popular choice for politicians to disseminate information. Given the political salience of EUSS and the centrality of social media in society it is surprising that to date the relationship between the political communication of EUSS and SNS has not been explored. This study addresses this lack of scholarly attention.

The study analyses how the EUSS is represented on Twitter by the UK government and other Twitter users. Data was extracted for the week following the launch of the scheme, and the week the UK formally exited the EU. These two time periods were chosen as significant points in the policy and societal timelines. Using an inductive thematic content analysis 5,202 tweets were analysed. The findings demonstrate that the EUSS is represented in a myriad of ways, at the intersections of migration, nationalism, belonging and exclusion. The government’s narratives are contested producing sites of antagonism, which highlights that harnessing social media to raise awareness by government cannot be presumed to yield political participation in the scheme. Therefore, as a means of working towards the universal non-UK EU citizen coverage aim of the scheme it is suggested that government, policymakers and communication strategists need to acknowledge the contestations present on Twitter and enter more meaningful online and offline dialogue. Whilst the findings here are confined to two weeks on Twitter, the ramifications are far reaching given that the ubiquity of the representations identified transcends new media.

Author

• Donna Arrondelle