Boris Johnson

British politician

• Born: June 19, 1964
• Place of Birth: Upper East Side, New York, NY

Education: University of Oxford

Significance: Boris Johnson was appointed prime minister of the United Kingdom in 2019, promising to fulfill the results of a 2016 referendum calling for the UK to renounce its membership in the European Union. Later that same year, Johnson led the Conservative Party to a major victory in a snap general election. However, he resigned as prime minister in 2022 amid numerous scandals.

Background

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on June 19, 1964, in New York City, the eldest of the four children of Stanley Johnson, a prominent British politician, and the former Charlotte Fawcett, a painter; his father also had two children from a subsequent marriage. Much has been written about the lineage of Johnson, a self-described "one-man melting pot." On his father's side, Johnson is the great-grandson of Ali Kemal, a Turkish journalist and the last interior minister of the crumbling, post–World War I Ottoman Empire. Kemal's son, Osman Ali, who was British-born, changed his given name and took the surname of his English grandmother, becoming Wilfred Johnson. Boris Johnson's maternal grandfather was a famous lawyer and member of the European Commission on Human Rights; his godmother was the novelist Rachel Billington. Two of Johnson's siblings, Rachel and Jo, became well-known writers, and his father-in-law, Sir Charles Wheeler, was a celebrated broadcaster.

Stanley Johnson was working in New York for the United Nations at the time of Boris's birth. Because of his father's career, Johnson's family moved often during his childhood, living in places that included rural Exmoor, in England, and Brussels, Belgium. Johnson underwent treatment for hearing problems as a child. By all accounts, the members of the Johnson family were both close and highly competitive with one another.

Johnson attended the European School in Brussels, where he became friends with Marina Wheeler, who would later become his second wife. In 1973, as his parents' marriage was failing, he became a boarding student at Ashdown House Preparatory School, in East Sussex. From there, he won a scholarship to Eton, Britain's most exclusive private secondary school. In 1983 Johnson enrolled at Balliol College, at Oxford University, where he studied classics and became involved in several influential student societies, including the Bullingdon Club, the university's infamously rowdy student-dining club, as well as the Oxford Union, a debating society. Johnson, who was already passionate about politics, campaigned hard and successfully to win the presidency of the Oxford Union, which is viewed as a springboard to a career in politics.

Journalism Career

After graduating in 1986, Johnson became a management consultant, a job that bored him so much he is said to have lasted less than a week. He then became a reporter trainee for the London Times, which fired him within a year for having made up a quote that he attributed to his godfather, the historian Colin Lucas—apparently to add spice to an otherwise uninteresting story about an archaeological dig. Johnson next spent some time as a writer for the local Wolverhampton paper, the Express and Star, before joining the conservative London Daily Telegraph in 1987. From 1989 to 1994 he was the paper's European Community correspondent, based in Brussels; he made a name for himself by lambasting the European Union (EU) institutions on which his father had once served but which had since become a favorite target of Conservatives. In 1994, he became the paper's assistant editor and chief political columnist. Also that year he began writing political columns for the conservative magazine the Spectator, and in 1999 he was made its editor.

During Johnson's tenure, the Spectator's circulation rose from 57,500 to almost 70,000. Apart from weekly articles attacking the ruling Labour Party and lamenting the weakness of the Conservatives at the turn of the century, Johnson's Spectator had the dubious distinction of also being a constant source of sex scandals, with numerous reports of extramarital affairs involving editors, writers, politicians, and Johnson himself, who was dubbed "Boudoir Boris"—and whose magazine came to be called "The Sextator." Johnson also began to gain celebrity status for his repeated TV appearances on such shows as Have I Got News for You, a satirical news quiz show, on which he is said to have attracted a cult following for, among other things, his self-deprecating humor. In 2006, he produced a popular historical documentary and accompanying book, The Dream of Rome, drawing parallels between the Roman Empire and modern Europe.

Entering Politics

Meanwhile, Johnson had also entered politics, running unsuccessfully for a parliamentary seat in Clwyd South, a Labour stronghold, in 1997 before being elected MP in the Conservative district of Henley-on-Thames in 2000. As many had predicted, Johnson's penchant for speaking his mind and his overambitious schedule led to problems, including a dismal parliamentary attendance record and the publication of articles that embarrassed or annoyed his peers in Parliament, who began to see him as a liability. In 2004 he was appointed the opposition party's shadow minister for the arts, but he soon came under fire on other fronts.

On October 16, 2004, the Spectator published an unsigned editorial criticizing citizens of Liverpool, England, for wallowing in their "victim status" after Kenneth Bigley, a hostage in Iraq who was a Liverpool native, was beheaded. Although he had not written the piece, Johnson, as editor, accepted responsibility for it. The leader of the Conservative Party at the time, Michael Howard, resisted calls for Johnson's sacking, instead sending him on an "apology tour" of Liverpool. Only a few weeks later, Johnson was demoted from his party's front bench as another scandal broke. It also emerged that Johnson had had a long-term affair with a journalist at the Spectator, Petronella Wyatt; he vehemently denied his involvement, but Wyatt's mother confirmed it, adding that her daughter had had to undergo an abortion as a result of the affair. Johnson, a father of four, was publicly thrown out of his family home (he was later forgiven by his wife, Marina Wheeler) and fired as shadow arts minister by Howard for lying about the affair.

Johnson's political career was revived when his former schoolmate from Eton and Oxford, David Cameron, assumed the leadership of the Conservative Party and appointed him in December 2005 shadow minister for higher education, on the condition that he resign from his post at the Spectator. (He remained a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.) Even though he was soon involved in several other controversies, including another alleged affair, he kept his parliamentary post. He became known for helping to push the Conservative plan for "top-up fees" for universities—in effect, an attempt to partially privatize higher education.

Mayor of London

Conservatives viewed the 2008 London mayoral election as an opportunity to make inroads against the Labour government. The post of elected mayor of London was created in 2000 by the Labour government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, and for years afterward one man's name was synonymous with the position: that of "Red" Ken Livingstone, a socialist. The mayor, while limited in power, has direct control over the city's police department and transportation system. Perhaps more importantly, many see the mayor of London as an important figure in the political balance of power in the country. The Conservatives, who had been out of power nationally for over a decade, looked to the mayoralty as having the potential to influence public opinion in an environment that had seen disenchantment with both the Labour government of Gordon Brown and the tenure of Livingstone. A win in London followed by a successful mayoralty, some pundits predicted, would increase the chances of Cameron and the Conservatives in a national election.

Johnson announced his candidacy in the summer of 2007, resigning as shadow minister for higher education but remaining an MP. As the election approached, Conservatives made preemptive efforts at damage control, surrounding Johnson—whose liabilities as an office-seeker were clear—with handlers to keep him in line and "on message." Johnson gave up alcohol for the duration of the campaign, got a haircut, stopped telling jokes in public, and promised to stay out of the social spotlight and avoid faux pas. The press quickly dubbed him Robo-Boris, a scripted and boring version of his true self. Londoners, particularly its sizeable minority communities, were strong Livingstone backers, but many residents of the city's peripheral, mostly middle-class areas were open to Johnson. Livingstone tried to emphasize fears that Johnson would cut programs for the disadvantaged, and he also suggested that Johnson was a homophobe and a racist. Johnson had been endorsed by the whites-only, far-right British National Party (BNP), support that Johnson rejected immediately. (Johnson would be accused of racism on numerous other occasions, including for remarks he made about Islam following terrorist attacks and for offensive comments about Africans prior to British state visits to that continent; he dismissed such accusation, in part by referring to his own multiethnic heritage as well as that of his second wife.)

In the election, Johnson defeated Livingstone on May 1, 2008, with 53 percent of the vote. Across the country the Conservatives, who picked up 256 parliamentary seats, beat the Labour Party, which lost 331 seats in its worst performance in more than four decades. A jubilant Johnson announced that he was stepping down as MP for Henley-on-Thames. In his first weeks in office, Johnson announced a ban on alcohol consumption on public transport as well as some surprisingly progressive initiatives, such as youth-worker programs. Five months after he became mayor, he forced the resignation of Iain Blair, the scandal-plagued Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Johnson also became known for implementing a public bicycle rental program, which came to be known as "Boris Bikes" (Johnson himself was known for riding his bike to work each day). He also upgraded the city's iconic double-decker buses. Johnson was reelected in 2012, again defeating Livingstone. That year he successfully helmed the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Brexit Advocate

In 2015, while still mayor of London, Johnson ran again for Parliament, this time for the Greater London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He won, concluding his term as mayor with relatively high approval ratings. As mayor of a politically liberal city, Johnson had cultivated a relatively moderate image, but in his last year he tacked to the right, in particular with regard to the upcoming June 2016 referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union—the so-called British exit or "Brexit." Though Conservatives were divided on the issue—Conservative prime minister David Cameron opposed it—Johnson saw the issue's nationalist-populist appeal and became one of its main proponents. The referendum narrowly passed, and Cameron resigned, succeeded as prime minister and Conservative Party leader by Theresa May. Johnson, his political profile elevated by the success of Brexit, was named foreign secretary in May's cabinet—although some said the move was an effort to contain his influence domestically, as he was passed up for the new post of Brexit secretary (formally, "secretary of state for exiting the European Union").

Nonetheless, while carrying out his duties as foreign secretary (during which he built on his reputation for either inappropriate or factually dubious public statements), Johnson continued pushing for a speedy Brexit, as the May government struggled to forge a consensus around how to extricate the UK from the EU without creating extensive economic harm. After May proved unable to get a majority in Parliament to support her Brexit withdrawal agreement, in July 2018 Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned, and the next day Johnson followed suit.

Prime Minister

In May 2019, still unable to marshal a majority in Parliament in support of her Brexit plan, Theresa May announced she would resign as prime minister, effective upon the selection of a successor in a Conservative Party leadership election in July. Johnson immediately began a campaign to succeed her, and in the first phase of the leadership election, in which Conservative MPs select the top two candidates to be voted on by Conservative Party members, Johnson came in first, followed by Jeremy Hunt, his successor as foreign secretary. Hunt positioned himself as a conventional politician with the appropriate level of seriousness and experience for the job, while Johnson ran on his charisma and his promise to get the UK out of the EU by the October 31 deadline that year, deal or no deal. Brexit watchers had long cautioned that a "no-deal Brexit" would be an economic disaster for the UK, claims that Johnson said were fearmongering exaggerations. In July, about 160,000 Conservative Party members elected Johnson prime minister with about two-thirds of the vote, to Hunt's one-third. He was officially appointed to the position soon after.

Johnson immediately courted controversy as prime minister in August 2019, when he announced his request that Queen Elizabeth II prorogue, or suspend, Parliament—seen as a strategy to block opposition to a no-deal Brexit. The move triggered several court cases and was ruled unlawful the next month. Johnson also faced dissent from a number of Conservative MPs, who he expelled from the party after they voted with the opposition. Brexit continued to dominate the political agenda, and in October 2019 Johnson's government was forced to delay the vote on a Brexit deal once again after negotiations stalled.

However, Johnson had more success elsewhere. Also in October 2019, his government announced a plan to hold a snap general election in December, and he and the Conservative Party consistently led in the polls leading up to the event. On election day, however, the margin of victory proved to be far beyond what most observers had predicted: the Conservatives won 365 seats, giving them their biggest majority since 1987. The vote was seen as a mandate for Johnson to push through Brexit on his terms, with the potential to drastically shape the future of the United Kingdom. The UK eventually left the EU in January 2020.

After an outbreak of a novel coronavirus causing the disease COVID-19 was first identified in China in late 2019, Johnson became responsible for leading the United Kingdom through the crisis as the disease quickly began to spread worldwide into 2020. The first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were publicly reported by the end of January 2020, and while countries' governments reacted differently in the initial stages of the spread of the virus, Johnson's government took more cautious steps into early March, encouraging the practice of good hygiene and focusing on containment. After the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a worldwide pandemic on March 11, Johnson slowly began to oversee more stringent measures and make attempts to increase testing that month, including the closure of schools as well as entertainment venues and restaurants. By the end of March, Johnson had announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was self-isolating. Though, in the first week of April, he was checked into a hospital and moved into intensive care, he ultimately recovered and was discharged on April 12. As the death toll in the United Kingdom continued to rise and had become the highest in Europe by the first week of May, Johnson's response to the pandemic continued to be criticized. At the end of October, he had instituted a second national lockdown that reverted back to a tiered system in early December, and in mid-November it was announced that he had been advised to self-isolate because he had come in contact with a member of parliament who had tested positive.

In December 2020, the UK began instituting a COVID-19 vaccine program. The following month, the country went into its third lockdown. While the lockdown eventually lifted, the UK continued to endorse social distancing and masking recommendations into 2022. Despite such recommendations, in September 2021, Johnson was at the center of controversy when he was pictured in a small, enclosed space with around thirty unmasked people for a cabinet meeting. Shortly after, he was seen visiting a hospital without a mask on.

In December 2021, Johnson and the government again strengthened restrictions, including requiring masks in public settings, working from home when possible, and implementing vaccine passports. However, in April 2022, Johnson again flaunted restrictions when he was fined for breaching COVID-19 regulations during lockdown. Dubbed Partygate, Johnson was reported to have hosted several parties—including one on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral—during both of the UK's COVID-19 lockdowns. Citizens were outraged at Johnson's hypocrisy, and several politicians and media outlets called for his resignation. He caused further dissatisfaction in early July 2022, when it was revealed that politician Chris Pincher, whom Johnson had hired as Government Deputy Chief Whip, had been accused of multiple instances of sexual misconduct and that Johnson had known about such allegations. The revelation caused 63 of the government's 179 ministers and other employees to resign. Johnson himself announced his resignation as party leader later that month, with the intention to remain in the position until an election could be held later in the year.

In September 2022, Johnson officially stepped down as prime minister and was replaced by Liz Truss, the UK's former foreign secretary. When Truss's government collapsed less than two months later and she announced plans to resign, some, including Johnson himself, hinted that he could once again run for prime minister. However, in late October 2022, Johnson officially withdrew from the race, and confirmed he would remain in Parliament as a backbench MP.

In June 2023, Johnson announced that he would work as a columnist for The Daily Mail. Later that year, the former politician announced that he would be joining the Gb News as a commentator. In 2024, Johnson published his memoir, Unleashed.

Impact

Often compared to Donald Trump in the United States, Boris Johnson earned a reputation as a charismatic populist during his time as prime minister. He often made conventional politicians—including those in his own party—uncomfortable with his willingness to make brash, offensive, and often inaccurate statements about important topics. This same quality made Johnson highly popular with supporters tired and frustrated with "politics as usual." For many, his energetic and optimistic view of the future of the United Kingdom outside of the European Union made a highly complicated topic that fractured British politics seem manageable—ultimately landing him at 10 Downing Street. However, the scandal-ridden end of his tenure, alongside the economic and social challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, was seen by many as contributing to ongoing political chaos in the UK.

Personal Life

From 1987 to 1993 Johnson was married to Allegra Mostyn-Owen; after their divorce, he married Marina Wheeler, with whom he had four children, Lara Lettice, Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches, and Theodore Apollo. Johnson and Wheeler announced in 2018 they had begun divorce proceedings. They reached a divorce settlement in February 2020. In April 2020, Johnson's partner Carrie Symonds gave birth to the couple's first child together, Wilfred. Johnson and Symonds married in May 2021 and had another child, a daughter named Iris, in December 2021.

Bibliography

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Castle, Stephen. "Boris Johnson to Be U.K. Prime Minister after Winning Party Vote." The New York Times, 23 July 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/world/europe/boris-johnson-uk-prime-minister.html. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

"Election Results 2019: Boris Johnson Returns to Power with Big Majority." BBC News, 13 Dec. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50765773. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Gimson, Andrew. Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson. Rev. ed. Simon & Schuster, 2012.

Hui, Sylvia. "Boris Johnson Drops out of Race to Return as UK’s Next Prime Minister." PBS News Hour, 23 Oct. 2022, www.pbs.org/newshour/world/boris-johnson-drops-out-of-race-to-return-as-uks-next-prime-minister. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Kuenssberg, Laura. "Boris Johnson: The Inside Story of the Prime Minister's Downfall." BBC, 14 July 2022, www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62150409. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

McTague, Tom. "Boris Johnson Meets His Destiny." The Atlantic, 22 July 2019, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/boris-johnson-profile/594379/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

"PM's Covid-19 Timeline: From 'Mild Symptoms' to a Brush with Death." The Guardian, 12 Apr. 2020, www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/timeline-boris-johnson-and-coronavirus. Accessed13 Oct. 2024.

Purnell, Sonia. Just Boris: Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise of a Political Celebrity. Aurum Press: 2011.

Totaro, Paola. "Who Is Boris Johnson, Britain's Next Prime Minister?" DW, 23 July 2019, www.dw.com/en/who-is-boris-johnson-britains-next-prime-minister/a-48866005. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Trillin, Calvin. "Capital Fellows." The New Yorker, 14 Apr. 2008, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/14/capital-fellows. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.