REPRESENTING SOCIAL ACTORS IN KEIR STARMER'SRESIGNATION SPEECH: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Political resignation speeches play a significant role in constructing leadership, accountability, and
democratic continuity during periods of political transition. However, they have received comparatively
little scholarly attention, particularly through Van Leeuwen's Social Actor Theory. This research
investigates how Keir Starmer represents social actors in his resignation speech to construct political
identity, responsibility, legitimacy, and collective action. Adopting McKee's (2003) textual analysis as the
method of analysis and Van Leeuwen's (2008) Social Actor Theory as the theoretical framework, the
analysis focuses on representational strategies including inclusion and exclusion, role allocation,
personalization and impersonalization, assimilation and individualization, nomination and categorization,
and genericization and specification. The findings reveal that Starmer strategically foregrounds himself,
the Labour Party, democratic institutions, and the British public while backgrounding political opponents
and internal critics. He further allocates agency to balance personal accountability with collective
governance and employs representational choices that reinforce legitimacy, solidarity, and democratic
continuity. The findings support existing Critical Discourse Analysis research by demonstrating that
political discourse strategically constructs leadership and legitimacy through the representation of social
actors. The research highlights the value of Van Leeuwen's Social Actor Theory for analyzing political
resignation speeches and suggests that such speeches function as strategic discourses through which
political leaders negotiate accountability, preserve institutional legitimacy, and maintain public confidence
during leadership transitions.