What a week in British politics.
Brexit is an absolute car wreck. The prime minister is hanging on by her fingernails and we learned the names of a whole bunch of Tory politicians that no one knew existed less than a week ago.
Seriously, beyond their own families did anyone actually know who Shailesh Vara and Anne-Marie Trevelyan were before they resigned on Thursday?
With Theresa May scrambling to find some replacements for her ever-dwindling cabinet, she appointed Stephen Barclay as the new Brexit Secretary, replacing Dominic Raab who left the position on Thursday.
Immediately people began to ask 'who on Earth is Stephen Barclay?'
Before we get into the jokes we should state that 46-year-old Barclay is a former banker and has been the MP for North East Cambridgeshire since 2010.
He was previously the minister of state at the Department of Health and Social Care and before that was the economic secretary to the Treasury and City minister.
Those nuggets of information are unlikely to shed any further light on Barclay and his personality, which has led a lot of people to make the same joke on Twitter.
ARE YOU STEPHEN BARCLAY https://t.co/TMdFe7UhHR— Matthew Champion (@Matthew Champion) 1542387273
It's perfectly possible that at this point, May just picked Barclay's name out of a hat.
"What's a name people have?" "I don't know...Stephen?" "Sure, let's go with Stephen. What's a surname?" "Smith?"… https://t.co/DowkPsR3MH— Simon Blackwell (@Simon Blackwell) 1542386800
The resignation jokes soon started to arrive.
Stephen Barclay has resigned as Brexit Secretary.— Tom Peck (@Tom Peck) 1542386173
There are a few things that we know about Barclay.
One thing I can tell you for sure about Stephen Barclay is that he loves holding up paper. https://t.co/uKSZAlHxHG— IT'S YOUR DECISION, DANIEL (@IT'S YOUR DECISION, DANIEL) 1542386418
However, at this late stage in the negotiations, will Barclay actually have anything to do?
May: "Look Stephen, I'll give you Brexit Secretary, but you won't be able to do any negotiating with the EU." Step… https://t.co/oYzbfqeMP2— Mollie Goodfellow (@Mollie Goodfellow) 1542385981
HT BuzzFeed