The Angry, the Sad and the Jubilant - A Sentiment Analysis of the House of Commons Debates on Brexit

In early February, the House of Commons debated the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill (plus amendments) authorising the British government to trigger the Article 50 TEU notification. The outcome was never really in question: MPs were under a strict mandate from both their whips and their constituencies – 63 per cent of which voted Leave – to trigger the notification. Yet the debates did provide both Brexit supporters and opponents with a very public opportunity to express their opinion – not only regarding the UK’s withdrawal from the Union but also, given the mismatch between their mandate and conscience, about representation in general. Indeed, while 80 per cent of MPs supported the Bill, only 25 per cent of them had voted Leave in the Referendum. Rather than analysing the final vote on the bill, the paper will therefore present a sentiment analysis of the debates. How do MPs feel about Brexit in general and about possible, positive or negative, effects for the UK and their citizens? How much confidence do they have in the government’s plans for the Brexit negotiations? Most importantly, the debates offer a unique opportunity to analyse the sentiments of MPs about representation, and especially about acting as agents of their electorate rather than as trustees: How do they feel about casting a vote in line with their constituency’s or parties wishes, but possibly against their own stance on Brexit? To put the findings into perspective, the paper will then conduct a comparative sentiment analysis of the debates on the referendum bill from September 2015 to gauge whether and to what extent sentiments regarding Brexit have changed or even intensified.