‘Russell Brand’s a joke,right?’ Contrasting perceptions of Russell Brand’s legitimacy in grassroots and electoral politics

Who can successfully claim representative status in the political field?

As the attention his political interventions have attracted demonstrates, Brand continues to accumulate a wealth of celebrity capital though his days of Hollywood movies and celebrity marriages have passed. Driessens (2013: 553) defines celebrity capital as ‘accumulated media visibility through recurrent media representations’. Like other forms of capital, this can be exchanged in attempts to move within or between fields (Bourdieu, 1984). Celebrity capital, or recognisability, is not reducible to symbolic capital, or recognition; the former is a type of meta-capital (Driessens, 2013), influencing relations between fields by altering the ‘exchange rate’ between different types of capital (Couldry, 2003). Celebrity capital is valuable, and therefore exchangeable, in mediatised fields where visibility and an understanding of media logics are fundamental resources (Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999). This explains the porous boundary between entertainment and politics, allowing for ease of movement across these interpenetrated fields to the extent that such boundaries become barely recognisable.

However, media logics do not replace but instead interact with political logics, in a ‘continual process of mutual adaptation and interdependence’ (Chadwick, 2013: 20). Agents who accumulated capital in the field of entertainment must therefore still negotiate with, and will be judged against, evolving political norms. Celebrity capital may afford repeated movement across related fields, but this alone is not sufficient to be recognised as legitimate. While the move into a more ‘elite’ field will always require a greater exchange of capital, fears of ‘trivialisation’ or ‘massification’ may particularly affect those seeking to work across entertainment and politics (Bourdieu, 1984). Giles (2015) argues that some points along field boundaries are more porous than others, affording easier migration. Just as agents attempting to move vertically within a field need to increase their volume of the ‘dominant’ capital (Bourdieu, 1984: 132), it is easier to enter the political field in less formal positions. In the following section, I will explore potential barriers to exchanging capital accumulated as a working-class comedian through claims to represent citizens in elite political contexts.

Not all political norms, however, present barriers. Bourdieu (1991: 194) argues that politicians owe their authority to the ‘power of mobilisation’ at their disposal. Struggle for political power is struggle between ‘professionals of representation’, who act as ‘spokespersons for the groups at whose service they place their specific competence’ (Bourdieu, 1987: 14). As I will discuss, Brand possesses an interesting set of media resources through which to ‘reach a wide group’, which Saward (2010: 148) theorises ‘may be one crucial ingredient in a successful, and positively judged, representative claim’. I argue that while Brand’s celebrity capital enables him to work across entertainment and politics, his status within the political field is dependent upon his ability to successfully – and consistently – claim to represent citizens.

David Cameron’s dismissal of Brand as a ‘joke’ draws on normative discomfort over the ‘infection’ of politics by entertainment, judging that a comedian lacks the requisite status to command an audience with elite political actors. The act of political representation is not, however, confined to those elected to public office. Saward (2010: 42) argues that representation is not something a person ‘does’ but something performed through ‘representative claims’: a ‘claim to represent or to know what represents the interests of someone or something’. Representation is ‘both a political process and cultural performance’ (Street, 2004: 443), and the successful performance of representative claims lies ‘at the core of political success’ (Saward, 2010: 67). In a context of low trust in elected representatives (Tormey, 2015), where celebrities may offer ‘alternative forms of political engagement’ (Wheeler, 2013: 171), this potential avenue for citizens’ interests to be represented is worthy of investigation.

Through textual analysis of Brand’s interview with Jeremy Paxman, Arthurs and Shaw (2016: 1139) argue that Brand’s legitimacy is based on ‘creatively constituting a political constituency’ for which he constructs himself as the ‘authentic anti-austerity spokesperson’. In this case, Brand achieved this by positioning Paxman as ‘an apologist for the establishment’ and himself as a voice ‘of the people’ (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016: 1141). As claims based on familiar tropes are more readily accepted (Saward, 2010: 46), the ‘familiar, emotional script’ of this populist rhetoric provides a strong resource which Brand can draw on (Grattan, 2012: 198). Combining this with his celebrity capital and social media audience, Brand can claim to bring ‘wider interests and new voices’ into the political field and represent ‘the word from the street’ (Saward, 2010: 99). While Brand’s comedy background may hinder the acquisition of status in formal politics, Arthurs and Shaw (2016) show how the performative prowess Brand has developed as an entertainer is a concurrent resource for making convincing claims to speak for others politically.

Arthurs and Little (2016: 96) argue Brand downplayed his ‘celebrity brand’ during New Era, emphasising ‘continuing affinity and shared values’ with campaigners and seeking to ‘amplify’ their voices. I agree that these tactics were key to Brand’s legitimacy but argue that this is because they bolstered his contested claim to represent campaigners. Their analysis of what became known as the ‘Milibrand’ interview focuses on the points of agreement and relationship cultivated between politician and polemicist (Arthurs and Little, 2016). It is unclear, however, how Brand repurposed his populist rhetoric to construct a constituency he could claim to represent in the election campaign. While Brand’s efforts to ‘justify his change of heart’ following the endorsement are noted (Arthurs and Little, 2016: 108), re-interpretation of Brand’s statements will also show how he attempted to ‘re-make’ representative claims in response to contestation.

Boundary crossing and status: who can Russell Brand speak for?

For Brand’s celebrity capital to afford him political legitimacy, his claims to represent others must be continually accepted by those he claims to speak for. All claims can be ‘read back’ by the constituency the claim-maker constructs, who may not accept this depiction of themselves or that the person speaks for them (Saward, 2010). Claims are not only evaluated by these constituencies but also by the broader audience which encounters them. Attracting mainstream media attention was a key aim for Brand in both cases, yet this means many encountered claims made on his social media platforms through other sources. Brand’s antagonistic relationship with the British tabloid press (Brand, 2013) suggests such attention may undermine, rather than support, his ability to make convincing claims.

However, Brand brings an interesting and perhaps unique set of media resources to his activism. While celebrities often use social media to promote political causes (Wheeler, 2014) Brand has gone further, using YouTube to cultivate a personal audience for political content. ¹ He is therefore able to combine continued mainstream attention with micro-celebrity self-presentation techniques, whereby intimacy and information-sharing are used strategically to appeal to followers who (regardless of their number) are regarded as an audience of fans (Marwick, 2015). Celebrities who became famous through broadcast rather than social media often use micro-celebrity practices to ‘bypass the traditional brokers of celebrity attention’, giving followers the impression of intimacy and interaction (Marwick, 2015: 333). Brand’s use of social media beyond this to construct an audience for regular political content supports his representative claims in two key ways: First, social media may enable Brand to bypass uncontrollable and potentially negative mainstream coverage and reach his constituency directly. Second, while Brand can draw on mainstream attention, his social media audience lends credibility to his claims to represent a constituency. Just as the ‘visible, comparable metrics of social media success’ encourage users to build an audience (Marwick, 2015: 343), Brand’s representative claims can be supported through direct reference to this audience of presumed supporters.

Two key aspects of how Brand accumulated his capital, comedy and class, present challenges for obtaining political legitimacy. Ribke (2015) argues that ease of boundary crossing is influenced by the comparative prestige associated with roles occupied in the entertainment field and those sought in politics. As David Cameron’s use of the word ‘joke’ to insult Brand suggests, comedians may be constrained by normative perceptions that politics is ‘serious business’. Research with younger British citizens has demonstrated that in spite of their expressed desire to see humour in politics, this perception endures (Inthorn and Street, 2011; Loader et al., 2016). However, if the celebrity adapts their self-presentation to fit the existing ‘front’ of a political role (Goffman, 1990: 38), such inconsistency may be judged as inauthenticity (Bourdieu, 1991: 193). Arthurs and Little (2016: 66) show that Brand has successfully adapted to different but related roles in the field of entertainment by playing characters who share his reputation for ‘transgressive behaviour’. In Brand’s political work, this reputation is used to ‘underwrite his legitimacy as an authentic moral guide to personal transformation’ (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016: 1140). In a recent book on addiction and recovery, Brand (2017: 14–16) anticipates dismissal of his advice by arguing that he is qualified to give it because he is ‘worse’ than the reader rather than ‘better’ due to his wealth and celebrity status. This mode of self-presentation complements claims based on understanding ‘ordinary people’ but may exacerbate perceptions that Brand lacks the necessary ‘seriousness’ to represent this constituency in formal politics. However, having constructed claims through a populist distinction between ‘the people’ and politicians, associating too closely with and adapting to the norms of the latter may undermine a claim to represent the former.

Brand’s use of populist rhetoric is also complicated by his economic capital, as left-wing celebrities are particularly vulnerable to accusations of wealth-based hypocrisy (Ribke, 2015). Wealth and celebrity status contradict ‘mirroring’ claims, based on ‘descriptive similarity between the claimant and the constituency he or she claims to speak or stand for’ (Saward, 2010: 100). However, while Arthurs and Little (2016) argue that Brand was able to demonstrate a ‘shared class habitus’ with New Era residents in spite of this, how his class background presented barriers in the more formal context of an election campaign requires further investigation. Status in the political field is based on possessing the ‘legitimate manner’, the correct language and set of practices (Bourdieu, 1984). The exchange of capital concerns not only the volume and types possessed but also trajectory, how this capital was accumulated over time, with agents typically sharing a trajectory with those occupying similar positions (Bourdieu, 1987). Ribke (2015) argues that personal factors such as sociocultural background affect the exchangeability of celebrity capital, particularly to reach higher political positions.

Cameron’s ‘joke’ jibe follows a pattern shown by established actors in the political field, such as Paxman, who directly contested Brand’s right to claim political authority (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016) and political commentators whom Arthurs and Little (2016: 24) argue dismissed his book Revolution to ‘reassert their own status as credible political writers’. Brand acknowledged these tensions when he used The Trews to parody those who mocked his accent and manner of speaking, joking that ‘you can’t be polysyllabic or talk about important things unless you went to school in a top hat and tails’ (Brand, 2014b). Examining the response to Brand in the contexts of a grassroots housing campaign and a national election campaign, I argue that evaluation of Brand in both cases focused on whether he could claim to represent others in the political field. The key distinction however is that his representative claims were of greater importance in the election campaign, where this was perceived to be Brand’s only source of political legitimacy.

Comparing Brand’s campaign interventions

The New Era 4 All campaign was founded in 2014 when the New Era estate in Hoxton, a gentrifying area of East London, was sold to a consortium of housing companies that planned to more-than-triple rents. Campaign leaders recruited Brand while canvassing at a local market, and he promoted and participated in a local protest held on 8 November 2014 which led to property management company The Benyon Estate withdrawing from the consortium. A larger protest of around 400 people on 1 December 2014 against the U.S. company Westbrook Partners saw their London office becoming the starting point for a march to Downing Street. Brand joined campaign leaders as they submitted their petition to Number 10, calling on Westbrook to ensure residents could stay in their homes (Garrett and Watt, 2014). On 18th December, it was announced that Dolphin Living would purchase the estate, with the charitable foundation later implementing a means-tested rent policy.

I attended both protests, observing Brand and campaign leaders as they addressed protestors and journalists. I will use this participant observation to provide greater depth regarding over how Brand was evaluated by those he claimed to represent, having spoken to protesters about how they became aware of the campaign, why they decided to participate and what they thought of Brand’s involvement. I collected all Facebook posts and tweets by Brand which discussed the campaign, as well as all relevant episodes of The Trews and sister channel Trews Reports. From September–December 2014 these platforms were used to encourage viewers to sign the petition, attend protests and use social media to lobby with property companies and politicians. Finally, I used Google Alerts to collect all online news and blog references to ‘Russell Brand’ or ‘New Era Estate’ during this period, also collecting newspaper and television news coverage.

On 27 April 2015 a friend of Brand’s neighbour tweeted an image of Ed Miliband leaving his flat, sparking speculation that an interview had taken place (Wintour, 2015). A 90-second trailer released the next day was enough to put Milibrand on the front page of four national newspapers. On 29th April, the edited 16-minute interview was released. However, it was not until 4th May, three days before polling day, that Brand released the footage he ‘found most encouraging’ and finally endorsed Labour (Brand, 2015b). Following Labour’s defeat, Brand used The Trews and social media to justify his endorsement for a further two weeks. During this period, I collected all online news and blog references to Russell Brand or Ed Miliband, all of Brand’s social media and YouTube content, newspaper coverage and television news reports. This approach to data collection allows for a more systematic approach to analysing the mediated response to Brand’s political interventions. Using this material I will now examine how Brand made claims to represent others in the political field, and demonstrate that his political legitimacy in each case hinged on the question of whether or not these claims could be accepted.

New Era: Brand’s negotiation of representative status

All I’m doing is standing there getting the camera to come, that’s all I’m doing … The media are interested in amplifying the message of people who already have power. The big businesses are interested in hiding the truth, the politicians are interested in empty rhetoric. We’ve gotta be interested in the different thing, representing one another in whatever way we can, accepting that we’re not perfect. (Brand, 2014g)

Brand clearly recognised that as a man with high economic and celebrity capital, his claim to represent a campaign led by working-class single mothers was contentious. I observed Brand negotiating this tension in two key ways: acknowledging the limitations of his representative claim, and drawing on stories of his working-class upbringing to support it. Brand stated his role as to ‘amplify’ rather than to ‘lead’ the campaign (Channel 4 News, 2014). He publicly claimed this role from the outset, telling those of us gathering for the first protest: ‘some of us are like entertainers, amplifying and supporting, but this is 92 families [who] are losing their homes because of greed. So all of us, especially me, I’m mostly talking to myself, keep our egos in check’. By labelling himself as an amplifier, Brand was able to claim the role of representative without claiming that his lifestyle was representative of his constituency. This role also justified Brand’s presence in the campaign through the resources he could provide, affording campaigners access to politicians and citizens they could not achieve alone.

In practice ‘amplification’ meant using social media to allow residents to speak directly to his audience, while also courting mainstream media attention to put pressure on politicians. Brand made repeated efforts to ensure residents were seen and photographed at the front of marches, his speeches serving as introductions for campaign leader and resident Lindsey Garrett to speak. I observed Brand visibly expending effort to use the attention afforded to him, and his experience as a media actor, to secure the coverage of protests he believed would be most useful. Brand spent several minutes constructing the image he hoped would define the first protest, surrounding himself with women and children living at New Era on the steps of the Benyon Estate offices.

Brand used The Trews not only to promote the campaign but also to give its resident-leaders a platform to share personal stories from the campaign and their community. This enabled Brand to be seen spending time with residents routinely in everyday life, giving the impression they accepted him as part of the community and therefore his claim to represent their interests. Brand also used stories of growing up in a working class, single parent family in Essex as a resource to pre-empt contestation based on wealth and celebrity. For example, he recalled a sense of powerlessness felt during childhood when bailiffs came to his mother’s house (Brand, 2014d). He demonstrated shared experience with residents by drawing parallels between these memories and their situation, claiming they inspired him to believe that by ‘taking things into your own hands’ you can make a difference (Channel 4 News, 2014).

New Era: contestation and support for Brand’s claim

Brand was right to anticipate contestation of his claim to represent residents, but did not anticipate the extent to which this ‘reading back’ (Saward, 2010) would disrupt his ambition to ‘amplify’ their voices. While Brand succeeded in attracting attention, finding himself on the front page of The Sun twice, this coverage focused not on the campaign but on debate over Brand’s right to represent it. Allegations of hypocrisy based on economic capital were precipitated by ‘snidegate’, an interview given by Brand immediately after joining campaigners on the steps of Number 10 Downing Street. Brand squabbled with Channel 4 News (2014) journalist Paraic O’Brien, who asked how much rent Brand paid and implied that he was ‘part of the problem’. Having failed to convince O’Brien that they shared a ‘duty’ to ‘represent’ and ‘amplify’ the ‘voices of ordinary people’, Brand called O’Brien a ‘snide’ and stormed off. This two-minute interview dominated initial news coverage of the march to Downing Street. Criticism of his line of enquiry on Twitter prompted O’Brien to respond that it is his job ‘to test tension between private circumstances & publicly held views of celebrities’ (O’Brien, 2014). After MailOnline (Sears et al., 2014) published Brand’s rent and allegations that his landlord avoided tax, The Sun (White, 2014a; 2014b) accused the ‘millionaire comic’ of ‘preaching’ from his ‘posh pad’ under the front-page headline ‘HYPOCRITE!’. Two days later, a further front page made a direct challenge to Brand over who could claim to represent ‘the nation’, reporting that 68% of respondents to a self-commissioned YouGov poll agreed that Brand was a hypocrite under the headline ‘BRAND. THE NATION SPEAKS’ (Morgan, 2014).

Arthurs and Little (2016: 102) argue that this criticism helped Brand, as his angry outbursts in response demonstrated his personal passion for the campaign. While this is true, I argue that the following analysis of the response to Brand shows that it was vocal defence from others in response which made these accusations of hypocrisy ultimately valuable. The Sun’s poll to ‘prove’ Brand’s hypocrisy was commissioned following debate over who best represents ‘ordinary people’. Criticism of The Sun was led by left-wing political commentator Owen Jones, who tweeted ‘Stop talking about combatting starvation – you have a fridge full of food! Hypocrite! #TheSunLogic’ (Arnett, 2014). #TheSunLogic became a way for people to mock the allegation of hypocrisy and, therefore, the argument that Brand’s economic capital precluded him from representing housing campaigners. Just as The Sun commissioned a poll, Brand used these tweets as a proxy for public acceptance of his claim in a Trews episode titled ‘Who Are The Real Hypocrites? #TheSunLogic’ (Brand, 2014h). Brand (2014e) also used The Trews to contrast his working-class background favourably with ‘elitist’ Sun editors, accusing the paper of ‘crushing ordinary working people’ by ignoring New Era residents. This enabled Brand to re-make his claim to represent ‘the people’ in general, and New Era campaigners specifically, in spite of his wealth. Coverage centred on debate over representation in part because other media organisations used this to criticise The Sun. The Guardian (Arnett, 2014), for example, favourably contrasted the online audiences of Brand with The Sun to argue that the latter no longer controlled ‘the debate’.

Most crucial to supporting Brand’s claim in the face of contestation, however, was overt acceptance by its core constituency: campaign leaders, other residents and a broader group of activists who supported the cause. During the ‘snidegate’ interview, which has been viewed over two million times on YouTube, Lindsey Garrett can be heard supporting Brand against O’Brien’s questioning. Recognising the limits of his representative claim, Brand (2014d) pulls the ‘better qualified’ Garrett in front of the camera to do a ‘better job’ of defending him:

At least Russell Brand’s standing up, regardless of how big his house is, in coming down and helping ordinary people. Let’s see if David Cameron is prepared to do that…thank God there is people like him…otherwise we wouldn’t be here today, we wouldn’t have 300, 000 signatures, we would’ve been kicked out and booted out of London, so thank God (Channel 4 News, 2014).

As well as attributing the scale of their campaign to Brand, Garrett overtly praised Brand’s role in their success following the announcement that the estate would be sold. Campaign leaders joined Brand on The Trews to advise activists to ‘get a celebrity like Russ … get a celebrity who actually cares about people’ (Brand, 2014a). Garrett’s (2014) statement that ‘rather than taking over, he gave us a much bigger audience to speak to’ suggests that Brand’s aim to amplify rather than lead was a key condition of this acceptance. Brand’s role was also accepted by those who, having seen him publicise the campaign, joined the march to Downing Street. Protesters I spoke to shared Brand’s distrust of mainstream media sources and saw him as representing a political alternative. Some qualified this support by claiming they were ‘not really fans’ of Brand but saw his mobilisation of support for New Era as ‘good use’ of his fame. There is an underlying sense here – reminiscent of ‘third-person effects’ found in studies of celebrity endorsements (Brubaker, 2011) – of discomfort with personally associating with celebrity but a belief that others are susceptible to their influence. This assessment of the relationship between celebrity and legitimacy can be seen much more prominently in the formal political context of the Milibrand interview, as I will now discuss.

Negotiating Brand’s status in electoral politics

Brand’s efforts to negotiate his representative claims as he intervened in an election campaign demonstrate that he perceived different barriers to legitimacy in this more formal political context. Those who criticised or defended Brand in this case also drew on different status markers to do so in contrast with the New Era case. Hosting the interview at the flat which had then been a source of criticism, Brand’s economic capital was now perceived as less at odds with political legitimacy than how he accumulated it: as a controversy-courting comedian. Addressing journalists on the campaign trail, David Cameron remarked that he ‘hadn’t got time’ to ‘hang out’ with Brand, labelling him ‘a joke’ and negatively contrasting him with ‘real people’ (The Guardian, 2015). Arguing that the election was ‘not funny’, Cameron implied that by taking Brand seriously his opponent was not taking politics seriously. The Daily Mail and The Sun focused contestation of Brand not on wealth but on arguments that Brand’s comedy background and ‘inappropriate’ behaviour did not befit a legitimate political actor. Past scandals, particularly ‘Sachsgate’ and stories of drug and alcohol addiction, ² were used to support Cameron’s dismissal of Brand as ‘a joke’ (Doyle, 2015; Schofield, 2015). Markers of class presented a barrier rather than a resource for Brand in this context, with his accent and manner of speaking marking him as an outsider. Journalists mocked Miliband for not only speaking to Brand but also speaking like Brand, glottal stops and all (Letts, 2015).

This may explain why during the interview Brand did not draw on his working-class background to support his representative claims. Instead, Brand focused his performance on language and gestures which positioned him as a representative of ‘ordinary people’, constructed in a populist style in opposition to ‘politicians’ and ‘powerful elites’ (Brand, 2015c). Brand prefaced his questions with phrases like ‘a lot of us feel that’ and ‘what we see is’, claiming to understand the preferences and perspectives of ‘ordinary people’ while including himself in this constructed constituency. Gesturing between Miliband and himself, Brand argued that ‘politics and people have to work in harmony’, bringing his hands to his chest to claim that ‘the people have made their disillusionment clear’. In asking Miliband what he ‘as a politician’ will do to ‘take on powerful forces’, Brand held Miliband to account over his own claim to represent citizens. When Brand endorsed Labour on The Trews six days later he positioned himself as a broker, vouching for Miliband on behalf of his audience. Anticipating scepticism, Brand qualified that ‘there’s loads of things I could complain about’ but told viewers ‘what’s important is that this bloke will be in parliament, and I think this bloke will listen to us’ (Brand, 2015b). The claim that Brand represented, and therefore afforded Miliband access to, a large social media audience was the foundation of his perceived legitimacy in electoral politics. Miliband himself positioned Brand as a representative when justifying his decision to appear on The Trews, arguing that he wanted to reach people not engaging with the ‘empty stadium’ of the mainstream campaign (BBC News, 2015).

While Arthurs and Little (2016: 108) are right to argue that media response to Milibrand was ‘mixed’, the response to the interview and to the endorsement itself should be considered separately. The former was far more positive, with even those who considered Brand an ‘incoherent populist ranter’ (Kirkup, 2015) supporting Miliband’s decision to engage with him. This was based on an assumption that Brand ‘spoke to’ a large audience, an acceptance of Brand’s claims also used by David Cameron’s critics to dismiss him as ‘out of touch’ in contrast. Owen Jones (2015b) once again led the defence of Brand, calling on critics to ‘stop sneering’ and arguing that younger people would be more likely to watch The Trews than read articles by ‘elite’ commentators. Jones was, however, alone in contesting the idea that Brand’s class and comedic background rendered him unserious. In general, those who defended Miliband’s unorthodox campaign tactic did so only on the grounds that Brand represented a group politicians were struggling to reach.

In contrast Brand was not defended personally against the criticism of Cameron and the tabloid press, with counter-arguments based solely on the potential for his celebrity capital to connect Miliband with citizens. The interview was framed as a strategic gamble, with Brand’s presence in the campaign acceptable only because high viewing figures suggested a potential ‘pay off’ for Miliband (Khomami, 2015). Brand’s status in this case therefore relied solely on his claim to represent a large audience, to overcome perceived incompatibility between his personal characteristics and formal political norms. During the interview Brand constructed his representative claims in opposition to these norms, relying on viewers’ acceptance that he was one of ‘us’ as opposed to ‘them’. Strong association with ‘them’, through endorsement of Miliband’s Labour, would therefore present new challenges to Brand in claiming to represent ‘us’.

Rupturing Brand’s representative claim

Once Brand finally endorsed Labour on 4th May, only three days before the election, this claim quickly unravelled. His anticipation that viewers could accuse him of inconsistency, having never voted himself, can be seen in his efforts during the endorsement video to craft his political statements over time and his future plans to ‘amplify’ community-led campaigns into a consistent narrative. Brand argued that while he had become known as ‘Mr Don’t Vote’, his position had always been a more nuanced belief that ‘democracy is for every day, not just for elections’ (Brand, 2015b). He used further Trews episodes and social media posts to repeatedly argue that his agenda had ‘not altered’, framing the endorsement as consistent with his previous claims to represent ordinary people (Brand, 2015d). He now justified this as begrudging support for Labour on behalf of those who, unlike himself, lacked the economic capital to avoid the adverse effects of greater cuts to public spending.

These efforts to ‘re-make’ (Saward, 2010: 107) his claims to represent anti-Conservative citizens did not, however, alter how the endorsement was evaluated by journalists. Owen Jones (2015a) sprang to his aid once again, arguing that ‘Brand matters’ because he is ‘listened to by hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Britons’. Others, however, were no longer convinced by this defence. Media coverage focused on inconsistency between the endorsement and Brand’s previous political statements, frequently accusing Brand of committing a ‘U-turn’. Unlike the New Era case, accusations of hypocrisy were no longer limited to Brand’s tabloid nemeses (Batchelor, 2015; Williams, 2015). If Brand was no longer perceived as representing the views of his social media and YouTube followers, the size of this following no longer legitimated his presence in the campaign.

Brand could not overcome contestation in this context because, in contrast with New Era, it was not countered by vocal acceptance from the constituency he claimed to represent. Having built claims on a populist narrative which relies on perceived ‘independence’, he lost the sense of ‘untaintedness’ which comes with being ‘unbeholden to other interests’ (Saward, 2010: 107). Crucially in this case he was also unable to draw on other, more personal resources when his claim to represent the ‘word from the street’ was contested. The media organisations with whom he enjoys a combative relationship continued to argue that a comedian and recovering addict had no place interviewing party leaders (Allen, 2015; Morgan, 2015).

Following the Conservative victory Brand finally ceased efforts to justify the endorsement and reflected on the limits of his ability to exchange celebrity capital for political status. He now used humour to overtly distance himself from previous claims to represent viewers, mimicking politicians as he joked that he was standing down as ‘leader of the Trews Party’ (Brand, 2015a). Brand sought to reassure viewers he was ‘just a comedian…just a bloke with a laptop and a bit of mouth’, an outsider to the ‘world’ of politicians which he does not understand and ‘intuitively dislikes’. This self-depreciation is reminiscent of occasions in Brand’s entertainment career when he also had to negotiate a loss of status (see Arthurs and Little, 2016: 66), due to perceptions that he had ‘unwisely stretched himself beyond his capability’ (Giles, 2015: 545).

‘A representative of the people, rejected by the people’

Comparing these attempts by Brand to represent citizens, I argue that his ability to attract mainstream media attention and his online following were crucial resources in support of his claims. In combination these afforded Brand a tangible constituency on behalf of which he was presumed to speak, thereby rendering his celebrity capital politically valuable. While Brand was consequently able to work across entertainment and politics with ease, moving ‘upward’ within the latter required resources he did not possess. Lacking ‘background factors’ such as an elected position, which provide strongest support for representative claims, Brand placed strong emphasis on ‘spoken and presented foreground factors’ (Saward, 2010: 73). This meant foregrounding a class-based ‘descriptive’ similarity to New Era campaigners, while also acknowledging his limited ability to speak on their behalf. During the election however, where Brand attempted to construct a broader constituency of anti-Conservative citizens, this mode of self-presentation conflicted with formal political norms. Here therefore he relied more heavily on the use of populist language to construct himself as a representative of ‘ordinary people’, thereby positioning himself in opposition to the man to whom he would then lend his endorsement.

Brand also constructs this role in opposition to mainstream media, frequently criticising and goading the tabloid press on The Trews. The name itself is a portmanteau of ‘true’ and ‘news’, marketed by Brand as ‘news you can trust’ with a grand aim of ‘bringing down the structures of media’ (Brand, 2014f). It is therefore unsurprising he faced derision in both cases from his media jousting partners. However, The Sun’s contestation that Brand was too wealthy to represent New Era was undermined by his overt and visible acceptance by the ‘appropriate constituency’: the residents themselves (Saward, 2010: 149). The implicit acceptance of two broader groups of constituents – those who supported the campaign by attending protests or signing the petition – also supported Brand’s claim to represent the ‘word from the street’ (Saward, 2010: 99).

The campaign’s success was framed by journalists not only as a victory for residents but also as vindication and legitimation for Brand: a sign that his ‘revolution’ could ‘actually be working’ (Selby, 2014; York, 2014). A Guardian journalist (Loewenstein, 2014) even declared that ‘after New Era, it’s harder than ever to mock Russell Brand as a hypocrite’. The Trew Era Café, opened by Brand on the estate, stands as a Trews branded legacy of the success of the campaign and of Brand’s involvement. Ribke (2015: 108) argues that attempts to boundary-cross between entertainment and politics benefit from a ‘cumulative effect’, as cases which share ‘some of the same characteristics’ with previous successes are lent a ‘sense of tangibility’. This suggests that the legitimation Brand received from the success of New Era should have supported claims made only five months later to represent others in the political field.

The claims made in these cases, however, consisted of crucially different characteristics. In addition to using different resources to support them, Brand’s claims constructed different constituencies and did not set the same boundaries. This helps to explain why acceptance was more forthcoming during New Era, a campaign which was not only well suited to Brand’s continued use of populist language to construct his claims but also to the polysemic interests of Trews viewers. Arthurs and Little (2016: 102) argue that there was a crucial ‘alignment of intention’ among the actors involved, who pulled ‘in the same direction, but also for the same reasons’. Building on this, however, I argue that while this broad ‘alignment of intention’ was crucial, this does not mean all supporters shared a common motivation. Instead the campaign was able to comfortably incorporate the multiple, but crucially not conflicting, priorities of campaigners.

Attending the march to Downing Street, it was clear that Brand had successfully framed New Era within broader anti-austerity sentiments. Protesters attended not simply with the aim of helping residents but to express dissatisfaction with austerity, neoliberalism and/or the Conservative Prime Minister and Mayor of London. As we marched, chants of ‘What do we want?’ ‘Council houses’ became ‘What do we want?’ ‘Revolution!’ These broad anti-austerity interests could comfortably incorporate the campaign’s specific aim of securing New Era for its residents. Similarly while Brand could lean on a core constituency which demonstrated acceptance – residents and campaigners – the boundaries of his representative claim were broad enough to comfortably incorporate the diverse interests of Trews viewers.

In contrast, while the interview with Miliband took place in his kitchen and was disseminated through his YouTube channel, formal politics was still very different territory for Brand. Here Brand’s constituency was both broader and less tangible. His status was dependent on the assumption that he represented viewers and followers, presumed to include an abundance of disillusioned potential Labour voters. During the interview he performed even broader claims to represent ‘ordinary people’, attempting to set broad boundaries once again by appealing to anyone with anti-Conservative sentiments to vote Labour. Failed attempts to re-make this claim following the endorsement, however, demonstrate that by drawing on populist rhetoric as a resource Brand had narrowed the representative roles he could legitimately occupy. Brand reflected on the influence of his continued association with not voting as he cast off his claims following the election:

I sort of became a de facto spokesman for people who don’t vote. But it wasn’t really that it’s just, I was feeling the same things they feel. It’s not like I was the leader of the don’t vote party, I was just another member of the don’t vote party. It’s not like I had any authority or power (Brand, 2015a).

Brand’s status in this case was dependent upon his claim to represent a large social media audience. Without this, he was not perceived to have legitimate reason for playing such a visible role in an election campaign. Comparing the response to Brand’s political interventions demonstrates that resources and capital are evaluated differently at different points along field boundaries. This is demonstrated most clearly by Brand’s economic capital and working-class background. Anticipating contestation on the grounds of wealth and fame during New Era, Brand used stories from childhood as a resource to demonstrate common ground with his constituency. Importantly however, he did not deny that he has since achieved a swift upwards trajectory in terms of capital accumulation, and that this limited his ability to ‘mirror’ residents. Instead he positioned himself as an ‘amplifier’ of their voices, publicly stating his role as to lend his resources rather than dictate their message. Most importantly, when Brand was accused of hypocrisy those who defended him actively contested the idea that a wealthy person could not represent the interests of ‘ordinary people’ in this context. Brand was able to address contestation, and re-make claims to represent housing campaigners, by drawing on this overt acceptance to demonstrate credibility. Brand’s ability to attract mainstream media attention and the claim to represent a large social media audience were therefore important sources of legitimacy, but not the only resources he could draw on when his representative claims were contested.

In the debate around the Milibrand interview, in contrast, defence of Brand’s role was based solely on the size of his audience and the assumption that he represented them. Miliband’s decision to take Brand seriously as a political actor was justified only by the potential strategic benefits, by the argument that through Brand, Miliband could reach a constituency of disengaged potential Labour voters. Once the ‘reading back’ of Brand’s claim to represent his followers rendered it unsustainable, he could not draw on personal resources to bolster his political status. In this elite context, just as in his interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016), working-class characteristics and a sharp trajectory of capital accumulation marked Brand as an outsider. That he accumulated his celebrity capital as a comedian and through transgressive behaviour in the field of entertainment was barely noted in responses to New Era. During Milibrand, in contrast, this rendered him too unserious to be taken seriously.

Conclusion

Having commissioned a poll to ‘test’ their accusation that Brand was a ‘hypocrite’ for campaigning for affordable housing, The Sun concluded: ‘forgive us for giggling. But it seems self-styled man of the people Russell Brand has been rejected – by the people’ (The Sun Says, 2014: 6). While this criticism demonstrates that celebrities seeking political status must construct convincing claims to represent others, it lacks credibility. Brand was able to mobilise impressive support for New Era residents, who in turn overtly accepted his involvement. Brand’s rejection by ‘the people’ he repeatedly constructed to lend him political status would come later, when he told the audience he had accumulated for his political performances on YouTube that they ‘gotta vote Labour’. That representative claims were crucial to Brand’s legitimacy in both cases but held greater significance during the election, where their acceptance was necessary to overcome personal incompatibility with political norms, demonstrates that some field boundaries are more ‘porous’ than others (Giles, 2015). Here the comedian who had ‘always accrued status and validation through my indiscretions’ (Brand, 2007: 82) found that while he continued to accrue attention, political status was suddenly beyond his reach.