The word cakeism is based on the well-known English phrase have your cake and eat it, which describes the situation of having two good things at the same time, when in reality, having one of these things should preclude having the other. It all started in the Autumn of 2016, when in the context of Brexit negotiations then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had flippantly declared: ‘My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.’ This metaphor for daring to want irreconcilable things further prevailed when Conservative MP Mark Field was subsequently caught on camera with a scribbled note saying ‘What’s the model? Have your cake and eat it.’ The EU later began to refer to any unrealistic demand from the UK as ‘cake’, and cakeism was born.