England’s ‘shock’ exit from the Euro 2016 Football Championship and the UK electorate’s
decision to (Br)exit from the EU occurred almost simultaneously, providing an interesting lens
through which to examine unfolding tensions in the UK and its component identities – all the
more so given the presence of two of the three other component countries of the UK, Wales and
Northern Ireland, at the Championship. Our analysis of 34,324 original tweets featuring both the
hashtag #Euro2016 and #Brexit shows a clear tendency to conflate British and English identities
in the context of Brexit, a conflation coloured by largely negative characteristics. We pay
particular attention to how recurring themes concerning leadership, accountability and
immigration are articulated in the context of both sporting and political events. In addition, we
examine the significance of the structural logic of social media on these discussions of the sport-nation nexus, with reference to vortextuality and mediatisation.