Sir Chris Bryant: Who is he and how will he get on as NI secretary?

During those turbulent years of Brexit negotiations, Sir Chris also loudly displayed his pro-EU credentials, at one point saying in a Commons speech that Brexit would not be done in his name, adding: “Never, never, never.”

Of course Brexit did happen and he is now in a government dealing with the outworkings of those arrangements, a point not lost on the Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister who took to social media with his verdict.

“As an EU fanatic I’d have little expectation of Chris Bryant standing up for NI against EU colonialism in this part of the UK,” he said.

To the surprise of many, Sir Chris replied a short time later: “Jim, I look forward to working with you for a strong Northern Ireland in a strong United Kingdom.”

He, like the prime minister, wants to talk about putting money into people’s pockets and power back into communities, not calling border polls.

But as the person with the power now to call a referendum on Irish unity it is a stance he will face scrutiny on, not least from Stormont’s nationalist parties who insist that a change of name plate in the Northern Ireland Office is meaningless unless policy changes too.

But for Sir Chris the first challenges have to be sorting out Stormont’s finances and working a way through long-delayed legislation addressing Troubles legacy issues.