It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Remainer or Pro-Leave, one thing everyone can agree on is that Brexit is nothing short of a total shambles.
And this being Great Britain, we’ve done a terrible job of styling the mess out and appearing calm on the surface.
Instead, the latest round of Brexit chaos has provided us with plenty of embarrassing and cringe-worthy moments.
We’ve previously rounded up times British politics has gone “full” ‘The Thick Of It’ but these moments are so ridiculous, so fantastic, that they would have been deemed too on the nose to go in the show.
With the no-confidence vote aside, these are just from the last month...
Theresa May getting locked in a car
Or locking herself in the car, we’re not here to judge. But yes, let’s start with the most recent development (though there’s every chance there’ll have been another cringe-worthy display when this gets published).
With parliament’s Brexit vote called off, the prime minister spent Tuesday meeting European leaders and attempting to make the Brexit deal more palatable to Tory MPs.
Angela Merkel rolled out the red carpet in Berlin - well, someone did - but when May pulled up to begin the talks, things hit an early snag: She got locked in her car.
It’s a good job it’s not crucial for the UK to look calm, slick and totally in control right now.
An MP picking up the ceremonial mace
Almost as divisive as Brexit itself, the mace splits the UK into two teams. The first, group one, is largely made of political reporters, and the handful of other people who knew, before today, that there is a giant mace in parliament which must remain on a table for everything to function.
Group two is everyone else, who collectively exclaimed, “what the actual f**k is this?” when reporters got very excited about the fact an MP had lifted the mace - which looks more like a scepter, to be honest - and walked towards the doors with it.
A dutiful member of staff guaranteed themselves a Christmas bonus by grabbing the ornamental object from Lloyd Russell-Moyle and placing it back, while a selection of Tory MPs knocked their voices a few octaves lower to bray things like, “Noooo!”, and “Look!”.
It was ridiculous and incredibly British. If you somehow don’t believe us, here are some outside perspectives from people around the world:
That evening we all stared at a live stream of closed door
It somehow wasn’t even a month ago that May revealed the Brexit plan which has largely got the government in this mess.
In the days that followed, there were press conferences aplenty and May gave a statement on 14 November, that was delayed for hours as she got cabinet to back the deal (spoiler: A bunch of them resigned the next day anyway).
What did we all do while we waiting for her speech? Stared at this live-stream of closed doors:
It was incredibly symbolic.
And the next day, May ended a press conference by promising to ‘get the runs’
The prime minister decided to go off piste on the 15 November, ending a press conference with a cricket reference that makes zero sense if you don’t understand the sport.
Answering the question of whether she would “resign as captain”, May said: “One of my cricket heroes was always Geoffrey Boycott.
“And what do you know about Geoffrey Boycott? Geoffrey Boycott stuck to it and he got the runs in the end.”
It’s been nearly a month but we still haven’t processed this turn of events, and it’s likely these people are in the same boat:
Reality TV became a key player in a debate about a debate that didn’t actually happen
It started like this: Jeremy Corbyn said he wanted to debate May. May agreed and the BBC suggested a time and place. Simple.
Well. Then both party leaders separately went on ‘This Morning’ to discuss the debate, revealing opposing views on when it should take place, that were both largely shaped by not wanting to miss ‘I’m A Celeb’ (Corbyn) and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ (May).
After yet more behind-the-scenes back and forth, the BBC announced they’d scrapped their plans and ITV soon binned their rival debate proposal as well.
All in all, we spent nearly a week discussing this. So nice work, everyone.
Brexit man v the BBC stepped up a notch
You might not know Steve Bray but you will know his signs. Since September 2017, the dedicated anti-Brexit campaigner has spent every single day that MPs are in session outside parliament, using much of his time to pester the BBC by holding up protest signs when they’re live on air.
With the Brexit chaos intensifying, the Beeb erected a huge, raised platform to broadcast from - which, handily, would block out protestors. Unfortunately for them, Steve had a simple but effective plan: Longer poles.
The ‘Dad’s Army’ coup
Around three weeks ago it became clear that Jacob Rees-Mogg definitely had the support needed to overthrow May and get a Brexiteer in charge. Some 48 letters of no confidence? Is that it? Easy peasy, he thought, probably in Latin.
Naturally, the coup was a disaster and JRM eventually admitted so, by comparing it to an episode of ‘Dad’s Army’.
For the uninitiated (read: young people), ‘Dad’s Army’ depicted a rag-tag and often bungling local unit during the Second World War, so make of this what you will.