Is the universal basic income a neoliberal trojan horse? Analyzing representations of 'the poor' and 'poverty' in UK UBI policy discourses

Despite the growing popularity of Universal Basic Income (UBI) in the UK, its proposed scope and relationship with the neoliberal political paradigm remain ambiguous and contested in academic and policy spheres. This research addresses this ambiguity by mapping the discursive production of UBI as a policy 'solution' in the context of neoliberal governance in the UK. Through a critical analysis of 135 parliamentary texts using Bacchi's WPR approach, the findings demonstrate how UK UBI advocates predominantly problematize 'the poor' and 'poverty' according to neoliberal logics. This is revealed in prescriptions of UBI as a policy intervention in the lives of three subjectivations of 'the poor': the 'impotent', the 'idle', and the 'industrious' poor. Two disruptive proposals for UBI as a mechanism towards an alternative art of governmentality are then discussed: as a policy of emancipation from the neoliberal economic game and as a right to the commons of the earth.