Introduction
How do we prevent terrorism? This is the million-dollar question of the age. It is also a highly controversial one. Not only is there dispute over which methods are most effective – such as the debate between the relative merits of counterterrorism and counter-radicalisation – but this issue is also embroiled in wider conflicts between national security and human rights. Liberal democracies are supposedly committed to upholding the civil liberties and freedom of their citizens. This protection, however, can clash with the claim that stringent, restrictive, and invasive measures are necessary to ensure those same citizens’ security from terrorist attack. This conflict is manifest in the UK Prevent Strategy. Embracing a policy of counter-radicalisation, Prevent has been plagued by criticisms that its policies undermine civil liberties in preference to national security, especially where this relates to increased surveillance. This censure is exacerbated by media publicity detailing the strategy’s extremes. In one example, nursery staff threatened to refer a four-year-old child for deradicalisation after he drew a picture of his father making a bomb.Footnote 1 The child had actually drawn his father cooking – the ‘device’ was not a bomb, but a knife being used to cut up a cucumber. This example reflects fears that government preferences for upholding national security were eroding core rights.
Of course, some would look at this story and argue that this is a necessary requirement of a world with terrorists in it. If terrorists do not play by the rules, then – realistically – neither can those who seek to stop them, at the risk of being put at strategic disadvantage. This binary and antagonistic relationship between security and liberty creates a normative dilemma (using the model of dilemma proposed by Martha Finnemore):Footnote 2 rights or protection? In terms of understanding how this dilemma is resolved, current analysis has focused on ascertaining how an actor chooses between, or balances, two competing interests. How do politicians select between multiple options when all options are comparatively compelling in respect of normative expectation? Yet this approach neglects to address a key aspect of coping with dilemma: the rhetorical construction of decision. Regardless of the motivation behind a specific policy, what happens when that decision is communicated to political and public audiences? Existing debate focuses only on the content of policy, overlooking how binary norms influence the ‘selling’ of it. To the extent discussion does refer to rhetoric, this tends to assume that language is merely a direct reflection of the normative dilemma in question and does not consider that politicians may manipulate their language in order to secure support for their political ambitions. Consequently, there exists a significant gap in the study of conflicting norms.
Resolving this gap, this article establishes an original model of rhetorical construction in respect to binary norms. Specifically, decision-making within a contradictory normative context demands that actors develop rhetorical strategies that support the policy they wish to pursue, but also explicitly reject any ‘alternative’ approach associated with conflicting policy norms. Actors necessarily engage in a process of, what is termed here, normative invalidation. Where an actor is subject to multiple significant norms (in this case, security and rights), simply selecting one over the other is insufficient to remove any normative expectation surrounding the rejected norm. The actor, therefore, must construct rhetoric in ways that actively invalidate and neutralise the relevance and/or meaning of the rejected norm, where this constitutes a vital aspect of their rhetoric. Critically, this is not the claim that actors balance or trade-off competing norms (as per existing assumptions), but that they actively use rhetoric to invalidate one or more of those norms as a means of selling policy. As such, this article makes an important contribution the debate concerning how actors deal with normative dilemmas. Comprehending this model of normative invalidation is critical as it plays into ideas as to how politicians promote policies, especially in a contentious environment. Identifying the ways in which actors manipulate and exploit rhetoric, particularly to undermine incompatible points of view, is critical to understanding policy success, the relationships between political and public actors, as well as the function of democratic politics.
This article explains normative invalidation via the constructivist paradigm of Strategic Narratives (SN), which explains how actors create persuasive rhetoric. The theoretical model proposed here, however, comprises a controversial expansion on this approach, and constructivist approaches to language more generally. Specifically, the article puts forward an agency-centric interpretation of rhetoric that conflicts with accepted understandings of language as a restriction on actor behaviour and rhetorical development. Constructivist approaches tend to assume that language is set; actors cannot construct linguistic and normative meaning themselves. And indeed, the idea of normative invalidation buys into this framework to a certain extent whereby it demonstrates that norms cannot be disregarded in respect to the expression of political language. Yet within this understanding of restraint, this article shows there is also significant opportunity for actors to redefine, reproblematise, and redescribe norms as part of a rhetorical strategy – both in terms of promoting and invalidating normative expectations. Consequently, this article makes a second original contribution to the debate on political language. The article demonstrates that actors possess substantial agency – explicitly, more agency than previously assumed – in addressing and responding to norms, and explicitly normative dilemma. This provides a much deeper, complex, and sophisticated understanding of how political actors construct language.
In providing empirical evidence of normative invalidation, this article applies this theory to Prevent and the rhetoric of British Prime Minister and former Home Secretary Theresa May.Footnote 3 Prevent comprises a good choice of case study as it embodies a key normative dilemma. The strategy is also compelling because it is controversial. Prevent’s success was called into question during the first half of 2017 following terrorist attacks at Westminster, Manchester, and London Bridge.Footnote 4 In response to these strikes, May’s prize policy was denounced as ineffectual, especially after it was revealed that one of the London Bridge terrorists had been involved in the programme.Footnote 5 May has, however, remained unswervingly committed to a hardline stance on counter-radicalisation that prioritises national security. Does this mean her rhetoric is as fierce as her policy stance? This analysis says yes – but only when accompanied by rhetorical devices that undermine and normatively invalidate corresponding norms upholding civil rights. Tough talk on national security is more successful when it simultaneously neutralises opposing claims to rights before those claims can be utilised by critics against the constructing actor. Importantly, the trends of normative invalidation identified here are not limited to one specific type of audience, but underpin May’s rhetorical interaction with a range of political and public spheres – indeed, with any audience expected to be aware of the normative dilemma identified here. Obviously different audiences generate different shades of rhetoric; the way May speaks to her Cabinet is very different to speaking to Muslim populations. Despite the difference in audience, however, this article demonstrates that the same basic trend of normative invalidation applies. Moreover, it is recognised that this ‘case study’ approach comprises only one example of a much wider rhetorical trend, with all the obvious research limitations attached to this. In demonstrating the theoretical approach proposed here, however, a single case study provides an effective method of proving the analytical point, especially where this permits an in-depth investigation of different layers of rhetorical construction. This method should not be seen to suggest that normative invalidation is inapplicable to other scenarios/actors. This article asserts that the model outlined here comprises a transferable framework that can be employed in other cases of normative dilemma. By demonstrating how normative invalidation works in relation to Prevent, so this provides a guide for how this functions elsewhere in the world of political rhetoric.
Security vs rights: the Prevent Strategy
Prevent comprises the counter-radicalisation strand of the UK’s four-pronged strategy to confront terrorism, CONTEST (alongside Pursue, Protect, and Prepare).Footnote 6 As well as being described as the most important aspect of CONTEST,Footnote 7 Prevent has also been named the most controversial, explicitly for prioritising national security at the expense of civil liberties.Footnote 8 This concern relates largely to surveillance. The strategy is accused of spying on Muslim communities,Footnote 9 to the extent that Britain has been described as a ‘police state’Footnote 10 and Prevent compared to a ‘witch hunt’.Footnote 11 For example, Prevent now involves an unprecedented surveillance of education in schools and universities,Footnote 12 as well as the National Health Service (NHS), where medical staffs are trained to spot signs of radicalisation in their patients.Footnote 13 While the scheme has undergone numerous strategic amendments since its development in 2003 that partially address some of these concerns, including a major review in 2011, criticisms persist. The contentious concept of surveillance is made more controversial by the way Prevent effectively endorses a very fluid conception of future action, securitising precursor activity (such as immigration violations, fraud, and engagement with so-called extremists) regardless of whether this actually leads to terrorist activity.Footnote 14 While this pre-criminal conceptualisation of space has changed,Footnote 15 this remains a major ethical concern in that ‘potential’ terrorists are discriminated against and denied ‘the rights of full citizenship’.Footnote 16 This approach is also liable to identify ‘false positives’, in which suspects are identified with no clear proof as to their guilt.Footnote 17 This is not just ethically questionable, but it also undermines community relations that are essential to the success of Prevent. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi says the way in which surveillance is currently carried out means Prevent is ‘toxic’ to community-based engagement.Footnote 18
This clash between security and rights is nothing new. While the conflict has been dismissed as a false dichotomy,Footnote 19 the debate is conventionally constructed as a standoff between two normative positions. In clarifying what is meant here by the reference to norms: ‘Norms are regarded as standards of behaviour, defined in terms of rights and obligations. In this sense norms are general prescriptions of behaviour that regulate intentions and effects.’Footnote 20 Such behaviour can be comprehended within the terms of Peter Katzenstein’s well-used conception of ‘the proper behaviour of actors within a given identity’.Footnote 21 Critically, however, the employment of ‘norms’ here is understood within the context of actual policymaking. While the ideas of security and rights can be comprehended in the more abstract sense of appropriate behaviour, the way in which these concepts are discussed within a specific context of real policy decisions cannot be overlooked. Both the issues of security and rights do embrace and express core ideals. Within the context of their political application, however, this is inevitably also a question of policy. Consequently, this article employs a somewhat qualified notion of a norm as relating not only to actor behaviour, but also explicitly to the adoption of specific policies associated with a given normative position. The informal phrase ‘policy norm’ is used here to reflect this. This approach is specifically designed to complement the work of Anastassia TsoukalaFootnote 22 and also (more generally) Michel Foucault’s notion of problematisation,Footnote 23 in viewing policy norms as the reflection not only of standards of behaviour, but also as an expression of how to solve societal and political problems.
Returning to the conflict between security and rights, choosing between the two is seen as the ‘cardinal question’ of security,Footnote 24 and ‘a seemingly inescapable predicament’.Footnote 25 While it is argued that the two are not necessarily incompatible,Footnote 26 this is conventionally presented as a choice. On one hand, securing rights is considered detrimental to the provision of national security, especially in times of emergency.Footnote 27 Demanding that all rights be respected is dismissed as ‘alarmist’ and of ‘tying the hands of security agencies in disrupting and preventing terrorists’. William Stuntz states: ‘Privacy and transparency are the diseases. We need to find a vaccine, and soon.’Footnote 28 This view has gained political traction since 9/11, following which ‘exceptional’ security measures have been normalised.Footnote 29 In the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington, DC, security is prioritised – what Colm O’Cinneide wonderfully describes as responding to ‘the siren song of dreadful necessity’.Footnote 30 On the other hand, scholars oppose sacrificing rights.Footnote 31 M. V. Naidu calls national security the ‘greatest attack on civil liberty’.Footnote 32 This situation is especially damming given that terrorists may actively want and approve of such disruption to democratic life.Footnote 33 Consequently, a normative dilemma emerges: should politicians prioritise national security, especially in times of extreme threat? Or should human rights be respected at all costs?
Resolving this dilemma is frequently presented as a need for balance and compromise.Footnote 34 Within this context, human rights are no longer considered absolute, but subject to a trade-off with limited security measures. The ideal of rights is supposedly transformed from an abstract conception to a pragmatic norm characterised by the realities of actual policymakingFootnote 35 – however ‘unpleasant’ this may be.Footnote 36 Balance has comprised a key feature of the post-9/11 discourse on terrorism, whereby an increased focus on national security is portrayed as necessitating a ‘new balance’,Footnote 37 ‘rebalancing’Footnote 38 , or ‘recalibrating the balance’Footnote 39 between rights and security. Others, however, describe this approach as a ‘Faustian Pact’Footnote 40 or reject the concept of balance altogether.Footnote 41 In reference to the latter, Dan Squires QC states that security and liberty are not conceptually equal and subsequently cannot be offset, to the extent that ‘it is not clear that we are involved in a meaningful exercise at all’ in trying to achieve compromise.Footnote 42 Furthermore, balance is criticised as a loaded metaphor that assumes ‘that liberty can make no positive contribution to security’.Footnote 43 While balance engenders positive images of scales and justice – which promote the idea that any compromise is fair and equalised – this framework may actually perpetuate a negative assumption against the value of rights. This debate against balance as a workable conception, however, does not undermine the way people still view the situation as a dilemma between two modes of policymaking. Even where analysts disagree with balance as an appropriate way forward, norms concerning what policy should do in respect of counterterrorism and counter-radicalisation still exist and influence actors, both at the public and political levels. This contradictory normative environment is problematic for policymakers in that any proposed policy seems destined to upset someone. Political actors, therefore, face a challenge: how do you win support for a decision that will inevitably be controversial?
Normative invalidation
The resolution of normative dilemma remains an under-analysed issue. There is a tendency to assume that conflicting policy norms essentially ‘battle it out’, with one eventually taking precedence over the other or some form of balance being concluded. In terms of how resolution occurs, this is typically attributed to one of two explanations. First, this is a measure of normative strength. One norm is hierarchically stronger and more pervasive, leading to its adoption.Footnote 44 Second, it is argued that the priority selection of one norm is the product of self-interest, where actors choose the norm that best serves their own policy ambitions.Footnote 45 Normative employment, therefore, is ultimately a combination of realist behaviour and normative pressure, within which self-interest has the upper hand.Footnote 46 Both these approaches oversimplify the character of conflicting norms; specifically, that each conceptualisation of normative dilemma relies on the same intrinsic assumption that the ‘unused’ norm – once rejected, or partially rejected in the case of balance – is no longer of consequence. This is not the case. While a rejected norm may no longer be of consequence to an actor in respect of the content of their policy (in that they have made their decision), this norm is still relevant to the communication of policy to others. In failing to consider this aspect of policy construction, the debate creates a major gap in our comprehension of normative dilemma. This gap occurs because the current debate ignores an entire stage of policymaking (communication) and overlooks a key political space in which norms influence (the rhetorical). It is in this space that both norms retain full relevance, despite the actor’s policy ambitions, until that actor can rhetorically persuade an audience one way or another. Regardless of the motivating factors behind a decision between two norms, this decision continues to exist within a binary normative environment in which both norms are accepted as valid. Selecting one policy approach does not automatically negate the other, especially where failing to do so potentially provides a platform to critics (and where that criticism also plays into a strong and pre-existing normative framework). The actor cannot adopt only part of a binary debate; indeed, that not addressing the debate in its entirety risks undermining the political strategy pursued. Consequently, this opens up an original and crucial question: how does an actor communicate policy when this is constructed within a binary normative environment?
This solution proposed here is the concept of normative invalidation. This is the claim that rhetorical strategy must outline a justification as to why any rejected or partial policy norm does not apply within a given scenario. For example, if an actor promotes the maintenance of rights in relation to counter-radicalisation, they must additionally create a perception that this policy will not detrimentally impact the provision and assurance of national security against a major threat; simply invoking the need for human rights is insufficient. The reverse is also true. As this article will establish, even the most hardline policy commitment to national security must still answer to the rights cause. By identifying acts of rhetorical justification – where these specifically appeal to a contested norm – this article demonstrates the presence and substance of normative invalidation. Specifically, this process is not merely a case of setting one norm against the other or creating a balance between the two (as the debate currently tends to construct the situation), but the construction of rhetoric that communicates a clear rationalisation for invalidation and the contextual removal of any normative expectation associated with this. Rejected norms must be removed from consideration in order for the rhetorical strategy to be successful with an audience. Critically, invalidation does not mean the end of a norm. Contextually undermining the relevance of a norm does not require its elimination, only that it is shown not to apply in relation to a specific set of circumstances. Furthermore, invalidation does not necessitate that the constructing actor abandon any genuine conviction for the norm. The actor can still believe the normative expectation they reject, as long as they do not make that evident in the rhetoric they communicate. Similarly, it does not rule out the possibility that the same actor can employ the rejected norm in future rhetorical strategies (albeit at the risk of being labelled a hypocrite). Invalidation is, therefore, a rhetorical process, limited to context.
Strategic norms
Normative invalidation could imply that norms dictate rhetorical strategy. Actors cannot sidestep the normative dilemma; therefore, a pre-existing framework of understanding binds them and what they can achieve in terms of rhetoric construction. This assumption reflects existing theories as to how language works. Constructivists view language as a restraint.Footnote 47 Language is not something actors create, but something they adhere to – if only because actors would be incomprehensible if they started making language up.Footnote 48 This constructivist approach is reflected in much of the critical literature on terrorism and the political language used to express the threat.Footnote 49 This article, however, proposes an alternative means of conceptualising normative use, one more open to the influence of actor agency. An actor’s ability to choose between competing norms already suggests a more extensive capacity for agency than many strong constructivist approaches would allow for. Consequently, it is argued that there exists scope for an actor to shape the construction and expression of norms within a specific rhetorical strategy.
This alternative perspective is conceptualised here with reference to SN. SN theorises how strategic rhetorical construction takes place, whereby these narratives constitute:
[A] means for political actors to construct a shared meaning of the past, present, and future of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors. Strategic narratives provide a tool for political actors to extend their influence, manage expectations, and change the discursive environment in which they operate … The point of strategic narratives is to influence the behaviour of others.Footnote 50
Narratives are the words, speech, and actions allowing actors to present politics in specific ways. Explicitly, they are the ‘compelling storylines’ by which actors strategically utilise rhetoric to craft and enact certain perceptions of a political issue, in order to shape audience opinion in line with their own interests.Footnote 51 Actors use narratives to create a description of the world – an understanding of what politics looks like and entails – whereby they ‘force’ their audience into adopting certain interpretations and pathways of logic that complement those interests. More than mere spin or framing, actors use rhetoric to influence how politics is carried out, and where such narratives hold together the necessary networks of communication and information required to make this popular.Footnote 52 Unsurprisingly then, parallels have been drawn with Joseph Nye’s soft powerFootnote 53 and the concept of speech acts,Footnote 54 where these also appeal to the idea that language can be taken advantage of for such means. Critically, this is an intrinsically deliberate behaviour. The strategic narrative is a conscious product, operationalised to secure a specified political purpose or benefit. While this is not to state that every act of linguistic employment is deliberate (actors do not premeditatedly construct every word or idea they employ), the opportunity exists for the planned and persuasive expression of rhetoric, specifically via narrative structures.
The SN approach does not necessarily conflict with constructivist interpretations of normative and linguistic theory already identified. Elsewhere, however, a more expansive form of narrative construction has been proposed. This comprises a more agency-centric interpretation based on the work of political theorist Quentin Skinner.Footnote 55 It is claimed that actors exert considerable agency over the construction of rhetoric. This does not preclude the idea that norms express pre-existing meanings that constrain the actor. Skinner accepts the idea of convention and that language articulates meanings that limit actor innovation.Footnote 56 What this article does assert, however, is that there exists greater flexibility surrounding policy norm usage within rhetoric than currently assumed. While actors cannot ignore normative expectations, they still possess significant control over how norms are rhetorically applied, specifically where this deliberate application is designed to realise their own interests. While norms by their very nature prohibit behaviour, these are also rhetorical tools to be exploited. Actors engage strategically with the norms that also restrain them, including where this relates to normative meaning. Invalidation must take place for this to be achieved, but actors still exert significant agency over the ideas they both use and reject. Critically, this original approach constitutes a potentially controversial deviation from existing understandings of normative theory. As already noted, the idea that actors possess even the limited agency suggested here is debatable. It will, however, now be demonstrated through an empirical analysis that this agency-centric perspective must be recognised if analysis is to have a full understanding of how norms apply to the development of political rhetoric – especially on such a major issue as terrorism.
Theresa May and narratives of security
Theresa May has never been shy of tough law and order on terrorism – an approach that explicitly sidelines rights in pursuit of stringent security measures.Footnote 57 May’s doctrine is based primarily on an opposition to extremism and she is invested heavily in Prevent, specifically as a hardline measure to control the spread and influence of extremist thinking. The key word is ‘hardline’. Prevent is not constructed as a soft approach, but as an aggressive policy of deradicalisation that should not be mitigated by any significant recourse to civil liberties. It is, therefore, unsurprising that May finds herself on the security side of the security-rights debate. Not least where many civil liberties concern the freedom of speech, rights to democratic representation, and cultural respect – all conducive to the spread of ideas, extremist or otherwise – the protection of rights lies at odds with May’s policy stance. This policy stance was evident during the last days of the 2017 General Election. As part of her ‘enough is enough’ strategy announced after seven were killed in the London Bridge terrorist attack,Footnote 58 May declared her willingness to abandon rights where these came into opposition with security provisions: ‘And if human rights laws stop us from doing it [increasing security measures], we will change those laws so we can do it’.Footnote 59 Specifically, this situation was portrayed as a need to be stronger on extremism, whereby Britain was ‘too tolerant’ of the ‘evil ideology of Islamist extremism’.Footnote 60 As part of this, May announced her new pet project – the Commission on Countering Extremism, which advises as to what legal provisions would be appropriate in prioritising British values over extremist Islamic views.
Admittedly, these announcements were made at a time when May was under pressure to look strong. After two terrorist attacks during the election campaign, she was facing criticism that, as Home Secretary, she had authorised police cuts that had made the UK more vulnerable to terrorism.Footnote 61 The attacks were also cited as evidence that the Prevent Strategy was ineffective. Running for election on a ‘strong and stable’ platform, May needed to re-establish her credentials.Footnote 62 The defiance in her speech, however, is consistent with her wider rhetoric, and specifically in relation to Prevent as a barrier against extremism (as will be detailed below). In rigidly promoting security over rights, however, May has additionally needed to address expectations concerning the latter, as an act of normative invalidation. May does not balance security/civil liberties, but actively undermines the civil liberties norm via her rhetoric. Indeed, her direct attack on human rights law detailed here can be interpreted as an acknowledgment that she could potentially be criticised on the grounds of diminishing rights and subsequently presented policy in a manner that negated the claim to civil liberties before anyone could make that argument against her.
In identifying further examples of normative invalidation within May’s rhetoric, data has been sourced from a variety of publications, including Hansard, UK newspapers and online news outlets, as well as the Conservative Party website. This plurality of data allows for a comparative analysis across different speeches, made at different times, and in relation to different audiences (for example, political elites, security organisations, businesses, various media, and general speeches to the public). As well as demonstrating that May achieves normative invalidation in diverse ways, this data also shows that the prime minister employs the same tactics of normative invalidation regardless of audience. While discourse analysis assumes that rhetoric changes according to audience, here there is consistency. Admittedly, all the audiences within the data analysed are: (a) public, that is, not carried out behind closed doors; and (b) likely conscious of the normative dilemma between security and rights. Within this context, it is possible that May constructs rhetoric differently in terms of audiences not covered by this data, for example, within a more private context. It would not be theoretically uncontroversial to suggest that May speaks differently in public to how she talks, say, to her Cabinet. Where this article is explicitly focused on public rhetoric, however, this is not a problem. Moreover, this consistency is unsurprising. Given the extent to which Prevent has influenced everyday life – from what you say to your doctor, to education in schools – even non-expert audiences can grasp what the curtailment of civil liberties means, and more specifically what this means in relation to the horrific terror attacks they see reported in the news. May’s consistency, therefore, is a reflection of the community-based nature of the issue and her problematisation of extremism.
Security as an achievement; rights as a failure
May presents increased security measures as a success. She rhetorically constructs both the introduction of new security provisions and the outcomes of existing ones as wholly positive and good. She boasts of her success in removing ‘citizenship from naturalised Britons who pose a threat to our country’Footnote 63 and that she has ‘kicked a few of them out’:Footnote 64 ‘Since coming to power, I have already excluded 44 individuals from the UK either because of unacceptable behaviour or for national security reasons.’Footnote 65 Contrasting herself to Labour’s policy towards extremists, under which she says Muslim preachers were ‘embraced on stage’, May has ‘excluded more foreign hate preachers than any Home Secretary before me’.Footnote 66 Moreover, her commitment to Prevent has provided ‘much greater effectiveness’ in tackling radicalisation.Footnote 67 What some may consider rights abuses, she pre-constructs as worthy of a gold star – where this comprises a tactic of normative invalidation. Security policy measures are presented as major wins, thereby negating claims that these may be morally contentious. How could these measures be inappropriate when they are something to be proud of?
The construction of security as achievement allows for the othering of the rights policy norm as a failure. May presents rights as exacerbating the risk from extremism and terrorism. For example, in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), May rejects the authority of this provision by stating that: ‘Court interpretations of the European Convention of Human Rights have sometimes prevented us from returning dangerous terrorists to their countries of origin.’Footnote 68 Consequently, the ECHR is presented as a barrier to achieving security via policy measures, especially in terms of the deportation of suspects/terrorists and specifically where this represents a failure that May has been successful in overcoming by amending policy.Footnote 69 Without her input and the imposition of restrictive security measures, the UK – it seems – would be overrun with terrorists. The strategic narrative argues that rights are the enemy; their safeguarding leaves the state more insecure. In contrast, security measures are to be celebrated and applauded. In this way, rights are normatively invalidated and the path left clear for further security measures in the future.
A necessary response
The first duty of any government is to protect the British public.Footnote 70
May also invalidates the idea that counter-radicalisation policy should uphold rights by emphasising the severity of the terrorist threat. Exploiting the claim that more threat justifies fewer rights, May negates the appeal to civil liberties by constructing a strategic narrative that the threat level is simply too extreme. She employed this tactic when presenting the revamped Prevent Strategy in 2011. Prior to outlining a range of potentially controversial new security measures, May pre-empted the rights argument by constructing the UK as facing ‘a serious and sustained threat from terrorism’.Footnote 71 She continued: ‘Osama bin Laden may be dead, but the threat from al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism is not.’ This rhetoric is specifically relevant to counter-radicalisation: ‘Al Qa’ida’s ideology may be discredited, but it can still be used to radicalise.’Footnote 72 In response, Prevent is presented as essential in order to ‘tackle that threat’ regardless of the impact on rights.Footnote 73 This strategic approach is further employed elsewhere for the same purposes of invalidation, where May repeatedly refers to the designation of the UK threat level as ‘severe’ and explicitly emphasises that this means a future attack is ‘highly likely’ or ‘imminent’.Footnote 74 Specifically, May asserts that this threat level demands ‘we must act’, that is, increase security provisions.Footnote 75 A security-centric policy is the only way to ‘keep us all safe’,Footnote 76 however ‘controversial’ the measures introduced in the name of Prevent are in terms of rights violations.Footnote 77 May further constructs a strategic narrative of the terrorist threat as one in which failing to introduce ‘vital’ new restrictions will exacerbate the identified insecurity.Footnote 78 In relation to the contentious Draft Communications Data Bill (which would increase monitoring of radicalisation and terrorist activity via phone and the Internet), May said:
Let me be absolutely clear: every day that passes without the proposals in the draft Communications Data Bill, the capabilities of the people who keep us safe diminish; and as those capabilities diminish, more people find themselves in danger and – yes … innocent lives will be put at risk.Footnote 79
There is also a patriotic element. May declares a need to make ‘Britain the most secure and safest country and strongest country in Europe.’Footnote 80 Security is linked to patriotism and national pride, which – as the pro-Brexit vote reveals – is a highly potent frame to draw upon in relation to a UK audience.
This approach has clear overtones of the idea of exception, as expressed by Tsoukala.Footnote 81 Rights are effectively ruled out as an inappropriate policy norm, at least within the current threat climate, and the engrained policy norm of exception means that May does not even have to explicitly state this for it to be accepted as valid. There is, however, something more complex here in that May uses the concept of exception to explain away rights and where this comprises only one of many strategies of invalidation. While May does unequivocally maintain that rights cannot be prioritised after London Bridge (direct normative invalidation), other forms of rhetoric are subtler and create a pathway of logic that necessarily concludes rights cannot be fully respected in the case of terrorism (indirect normative invalidation). In the case of building an exclusive focus around the level of threat, the strength of the security/rights dilemma means that the negation of civil liberties is (a) implied and (b) a logical consequence of rhetorically setting the scene in favour of a security-centric argument. May effectively tips the scales in favour of security before anything is even weighed. In another example, she declares counter-radicalisation is necessary as ‘we cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed’.Footnote 82 She continues ‘While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is – to be frank – far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.’ Again, while there is no direct reference to rights, the indirect implication is clear: respecting rights creates extremism, which itself is equated with terrorism. Furthermore, May pre-empts support for the notion of toleration by negating it as a vehicle for extremism. May normatively invalidates the liberty argument by rhetorically constructing a strategic narrative in which rights simply do not apply; indeed, they are actively dangerous.
May also draws on previous terrorist attacks – particularly 7/7 – to ‘remind’ an audience of what failing to act against terrorism can look like.Footnote 83 Again, this comprises a method of drawing upon an explicitly identified state of fear and anxiety to promote a security-centric approach; this time one already experienced, as opposed to the threat of future strikes. Specifically, May constructs these events as ‘murder’:Footnote 84 Lee Rigby was ‘brutally murdered’;Footnote 85 the Brussels bombings were ‘cold-blooded’ murder;Footnote 86 and Manchester involved the ‘murder of innocent citizens and the deliberate targeting of children’.Footnote 87 The characterisation of murder, as opposed to a military or political attack, is strategic. Murder is an inhuman and proscribed act for which there is no moral justification, or at least that it can be easily constructed as such.Footnote 88 This is not to say the charge of terrorism is not also effective, but that the emotional and moral impact of murder is significantly more difficult to justify from a rights perspective. Who could excuse any act that would mitigate or justify immoral and cold-hearted killing? As such, May once more invalidates the claim to rights. By creating a situation in which an audience effectively has to condone murder in order to support the safeguarding of rights, May strengthens her narrative case for a security-centric approach.
Qualified conception of human rights
May further invalidates the rights policy norm by constructing a highly qualified account of what rights are. May’s rhetoric limits rights to the protection of ‘British values’ from terrorismFootnote 89 – where these values comprise the only rights that matter – as opposed to the rights subject to protection from the implementation of counter-radicalisation measures. May’s narrative is focused on protecting a certain ideology and way of life (as manifest in the Commission on Countering Extremism). Other freedoms that may be diminished by that process are not even rights, let alone rights to be respected. The ultimate right is to live your (‘British’) life as normal in spite of terrorism. May said after the Westminster attack:
As I speak millions will be boarding trains and aeroplanes to travel to London, and to see for themselves the greatest city on Earth. It is in these actions – millions of acts of normality – that we find the best response to terrorism. A response that denies our enemies their victory. That refuses to let them win. That shows we will never give in.Footnote 90
Prevent exemplifies this sentiment where community financing is limited to associations that are clearly committed to ‘British values’;Footnote 91 and where groups who are not are dismissed as promoting ‘twisted narratives’ that conflict with and challenge ‘British’ freedoms.Footnote 92 Furthermore, May negates the rights of radicalised persons by dismissing their ideology as ‘not Islamic’Footnote 93 – that is, they have no legitimate religious and/or cultural grounds on which to lay a case for rights or representation – and by playing up alleged abuses within the Muslim community, such as the discriminatory treatment of women.Footnote 94 Consequently, this invalidates the rights argument as – while making it appear as though liberties are valued – May’s strategic narrative draws a highly selective line between those who possess rights and those who do not. It is worth noting that this invalidation of rights is exclusive to Muslim communities and does not take into account the far right. While the 2011 Prevent review committed the strategy to addressing far right extremism also, relatively little progress has been made in this area.Footnote 95
As part of this narrative tactic, May ties the concept of ‘British’ values to democracy. Prevent, therefore, becomes a rhetorical bastion in the protection of the democratic system.Footnote 96 This rhetoric is ironic given that: (a) it has already been shown above that Prevent encourages alienation from the democratic system; and (b) diminishing rights undermines and opposes the very values of democratic representation May employs to justify her security-centric approach to counter-radicalisation.Footnote 97 Yet again, however, May presents an extremely qualified notion of what democracy constitutes, specifically in relation to the expression of rights:
The starting point of the new strategy is the emphatic rejection of the misconception that in a liberal democracy like Britain, ‘anything goes’, the belief that living in a society like ours means there aren’t really any fundamental rules or norms.Footnote 98
Democracy then is not a commitment to representing all rights and opinions, but only some. Despite the promise of democratic representation, there are still rules as to how you should live your life and what ideals you should commit to; beyond that, you should not expect protection for your ideology or actions. In particular, the reference to ‘anything goes’ invalidates the safeguarding and toleration of any belief that falls outside the category of ‘British values’. This reference negates those very beliefs by othering them as inconsistent and even repugnant to the ‘British’ society.Footnote 99 Within this context, May presents this as a case in which Prevent cannot diminish rights on these grounds, as no rights exist in the first place. And to the extent that rights do occur in the form of ‘British values’, then restrictive security measures are necessitated as the only way to ensure those values are secured. It is a Catch 22: if you do not possess rights, then any security measure is justified against you; if you do possess rights, then any security measure is justified in ensuring they are upheld (even if this then reduces those rights in the process).
Critically, this situation is not simply a case in which certain rights are absent from the debate. If this were a situation of mere absence, then the normative invalidation argument could be accused of being little more than a straw man. While May dismisses certain rights, however, she does so in ways that effectively acknowledges the rights-based policy norm. Reducing rights to a qualified classification does absent certain forms of entitlement; yet this rejection is only rhetorically possible to the extent that it relies on a manipulated notion of pro-rights norms. Consequently, this is not simply a case of rejecting non-British values, but the utilisation of normative invalidation to detach them from debate. The presence of a rhetorical justification based on the acknowledgment of rights-based policy norms – as opposed to mere rejection – demonstrates that this comprises a more complex construction of language, that is, normative invalidation.
May’s tactic of qualification also appeals to the concept of balance. While she explicitly does not adopt a balanced approach in terms of actual policy, May exploits this narrative in order to further invalidate any commitment to the preservation of rights. In relation to Prevent, May states: ‘The freedom to exercise our rights depends fundamentally on our security. But likewise there is no value in security without liberty.’Footnote 100 May employs the specific concept of balance identified above in which liberty is considered the more destructive partner.Footnote 101 Critically, however, not only can this model be used to demonstrate how balance is constructed, but also how the idea of compromise can be manipulated to skew debate while still giving the impression that balance is respected. In doing so, May additionally employs the idea that rights do not constitute an abstract ideal that can be subject to ‘academic’ debate, but an assessment of reality.Footnote 102 Once the debate became successfully based on concepts of pragmatic policymaking, May is able to again refer to high threat levels and the necessary prioritisation of security already identified: ‘All these threats and many more should remind us of an obvious old truth. The world is a dangerous place and the United Kingdom needs the capabilities to defend its interests and protect its citizens.’Footnote 103 May appears to be weighing all sides, but actually invalidates the rights debate by manipulating the definition of balance in favour of a security-centric conceptualisation of counter-radicalisation.
Denial of abuse
Normative invalidation also occurs as an act of sheer denial. May refutes that civil liberties have been undermined by counter-radicalisation policies, specifically policies based on the security policy norm. In relation to Prevent, May has rejected all allegations of spying as ‘false’ and has repeatedly denied the existence of a mass surveillance programme:Footnote 104 ‘There is no surveillance state.’Footnote 105 She states outright that new and proposed surveillance laws are not about ‘letting the Government snoop on your e-mails’ or creating a ‘snooper’s charter’.Footnote 106 In addition, May asserts that she and the government have respected key civil liberties: the Conservatives rejected the controversial ID card scheme and May emphatically condemned the Labour party commitment to ‘stop and search’ at the 2014 Tory Conference. May’s justification for her stance on these policies, however, is less altruistic than this may first appear. May explained that the Tories opposed ID cards because they were ‘disproportionate, expensive and unnecessary’ – less a rights-driven commitment against surveillance and more an economic appeal to the public purse.Footnote 107 Similarly, she publicly opposed stop and search because it disproportionately affected black men. This claim can be criticised as hypocritical given that Prevent is seen to discriminately target Muslims and that May has continued to uphold stop and search powers against suspected terrorists (under Section 43 of the 2000 Terrorism Act). The decision to condemn Labour, however, was strategic – not only as a blow against the opposition, but also because May had been criticised after admitting that as many as 250,000 illegal stop and search procedures had been carried out the previous year.Footnote 108 Even taking into account May’s commitment to curbing certain forms of stop and search, she was attempting to rhetorically reassert her authority and credibility on a contentious issue.
In a further example, May commented after the 2015 Paris attacks: ‘Freedom of the press means that the press should be free to publish what it chooses within the law.’Footnote 109 The qualification of ‘within the law’ again comprises a form of normative invalidation in that it does not treat the freedom of the press as an ideal, but as applicable only in the context of what legal and security measures will allow. In this sense, no rights have been violated as the law has been respected. Yet the law is the product of the government and this itself can be seen as causing a diminishment of rights. May has overseen a number of changes to the law in order to facilitate the introduction of restrictive security policies. For example, the government amended the law ‘to make it clear to the courts that Article 8 of the European convention on human rights, the right to respect for a family life, is qualified and not an absolute right’, specifically as the facilitation of counterterrorism and counter-radicalisation strategies.Footnote 110 In conflating what is legal with what is moral, May invalidates the civil liberties policy norm by asserting that rights have not been affected – or at least not under the terms of consideration she rhetorically constructs.
This claim is supported by May’s refusal to commit to the freedoms of the press and of expression in the same speech following the terror events in Paris. In response to public protests held in France after the attacks, May notes that the marchers ‘expressed their support for all those who were standing for freedom of the press and the freedoms of our democracy’.Footnote 111 In itself, this is a highly convenient reference to rights and democratic representation at a time when she was accused of undermining such ideals in the UK. The comment, however, is indirect. May does not say she supports the call for freedom; she merely recognises that other people make the claim. Moreover, she makes no effort to suggest this is applicable to the UK: these are French protestors, making it easy to reject the relevance of such views to the British case. Consequently, this demonstrates that: (a) May did not communicate any genuine and/or personal belief in the freedoms of press or expression; and (b) that her references are indirect and strategic. May forms an illusion of her commitment in order to silence and invalidate the criticisms of those who support the rights policy norm, but this rhetoric is ‘all talk’ and belies exclusive policy faithfulness to the security-centric approach. Recognising this distinction is extremely important as it demonstrates that invalidation is not necessarily expressed as an outright rejection of a norm, not least where doing so could attract criticism. Normative rejection is a complex and sophisticated process that makes that rejection palatable to an audience, to the extent it may even appear that the actor continues to uphold the ideals of the invalidated norm. Clever logic and persuasive speech can give an impression on the surface that invalidation has not taken place in terms of actual policy, when in fact this is the very act that a selected rhetoric is designed to cover up. This situation is why is it so important to acknowledge the level of agency that actors possess in terms of rhetorical construction, as it is within this agency-driven rhetorical space that politically manipulative strategies are developed and communicated to key audiences.
Conclusion
The truth about the way the privacy and security debate has been presented is that it creates myths that hide serious and pressing difficulties.Footnote 112
Counter-radicalisation (as conventionally constructed) involves a decision between security and rights. To the extent that actors accept these two policy-based norms lie in conflict with each other, implementing a counter-radicalisation strategy that is necessarily intimate and invasive – in that it seeks to get into the very minds of the people it is aimed at – will necessitate controversial choices as to how those people are treated. Specifically, these decisions concern how far their rights will be respected in the face of the need to preclude terrorism. This issue is not just about the actual decision, however, but the rhetorical strategy employed to communicate it. Simply stating that one side of the security/rights policy debate does not apply in a specific case is insufficient for that rhetorical strategy to succeed. Instead, the rejected policy norm must be contextually invalidated and neutralised as a consideration. This is the concept of normative invalidation. Explicitly, this model comprises a deviation from existing understandings of normative dilemma (especially where this related to security/rights) as a balancing of two different policy viewpoints or of norms and self-interest. Actors do not pursue a rhetorical ‘compromise’, but eliminate a norm from consideration in the minds of their audience. This is a much more extensive and aggressive strategy than previously assumed.
Normative invalidation is evident in May’s rhetoric on the Prevent Strategy. May has repeatedly employed strategic narratives to nullify the claim to rights as a rhetorical means of upholding a hardline security-centric approach. Critically, this article does not make any judgement on the appropriateness of that policy. Instead, this study is concerned with its rhetorical construction, specifically the most effective means by which to sell it. May achieves this in a variety of ways – from outright denial that rights have been violated, to the qualified construction of rights as relevant only to the preservation of ‘British values’. Whatever the tactic, the intended result is the same: the invalidation of a competing norm in order to ensure the success of a political strategy based on the other. Rhetoric removes the potential criticism against a proposed course of action and makes policy as appealing to an audience as possible. The way in which invalidation is constructed in this way – that is, it is presented in ways designed to shape an audience’s thinking – also demonstrates that actors are not entirely constrained by the policy norms characterising their political environment. Norms do dictate actor behaviour, including the rhetoric they employ to communicate that behaviour. Yet this is not the full story. Actors are also agency-driven agents, who can exploit pre-existing norms for their own interests. Crucially, in constructing this model, this article should not be considered as justifying or sanctioning the use of language in this way. In explaining why May has said what she has, this is no way a signal of support either of the content of that narrative or the idea that policymakers should exploit norms and language. The conclusion, however, remains the same. Actors may play by the rules, but this does not preclude that they can play with the rules also.
Michelle Bentley is Reader in International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London.
