Boris Johnson

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to Stanley Johnson, then studying economics at Columbia University, and Charlotte Fawcett, an artist.

Johnson is one of only two British prime ministers to have been an American citizen.

Johnson's parents returned to the UK in September 1964 so Charlotte could study at the University of Oxford.

She lived with her son in Summertown, Oxford, and in September 1965 she gave birth to a daughter, Rachel.

In July 1965, the family moved to Crouch End in North London, and in February 1966 they relocated to Washington, DC, where Stanley worked with the World Bank.

Stanley then took a job with a policy panel on population control, and moved the family to Norwalk, Connecticut, in June.

A third child, Leo, was born in September 1967.

The family returned to the UK in 1969, and they settled into West Nethercote Farm, Somerset, Stanley's family home in Exmoor.

His father was regularly absent, leaving Johnson to be raised largely by his mother, assisted by au pairs.

As a child, Johnson was quiet, studious, and deaf, resulting in several operations to insert grommets into his ears.

He and his siblings were encouraged to engage in intellectual activities from a young age.

Johnson's earliest recorded ambition was to be "world king".

Johnson attended Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford in his youth; and he was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1986.

In 1989, he began writing for The Daily Telegraph, and from 1999 to 2005 he was the editor of The Spectator.

He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 2001 to 2008 and Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023.

He became a member of the shadow cabinet of Michael Howard in 2001 and later, after Howard resigned, he became a member of David Cameron's shadow cabinet.

He was elected Mayor of London in 2008 and resigned from the House of Commons to focus his attention on the mayoralty.

He was re-elected mayor in 2012, but did not run for re-election in 2016.

At the 2015 general election he was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

He previously was Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016.

Johnson was a prominent figure in the Brexit campaign in the 2016 European Union membership referendum.

After the referendum, Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him foreign secretary.

He resigned from the position in 2018 in protest at both the Chequers Agreement and May's approach to Brexit.

Johnson succeeded May as prime minister.

He re-opened Brexit negotiations with the European Union and in early September he prorogued Parliament; the Supreme Court later ruled the action to have been unlawful.

He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022.

After agreeing to a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement but failing to win parliamentary support, Johnson called a snap general election to be held in December 2019, which the Conservative Party won.

During Johnson's premiership, the government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing various emergency powers to mitigate its impact and approved a nationwide vaccination programme.

He also responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorising foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine.

In the Partygate scandal it was found that numerous parties had been held at 10 Downing Street during national COVID-19 lockdowns, and COVID-19 social distancing laws were breached by 83 individuals, including Johnson, who in April 2022 was issued with a fixed penalty notice.

The publishing of the Sue Gray report in May 2022 and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction led in June 2022 to a vote of confidence in his leadership amongst Conservative MPs, which he won.

In July 2022, revelations over his appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip of the party while knowing of allegations of sexual misconduct against him led to a mass resignation of members of his government and to Johnson announcing his resignation as prime minister.

He was succeeded by Liz Truss but remained in the House of Commons as a backbencher until he resigned in June 2023, days before the Privileges Committee investigation on his conduct unanimously found that he had lied to the Commons on numerous occasions.

Johnson is seen by many as a controversial figure in British politics.

His supporters have praised him for being humorous, witty, and entertaining, with an appeal reaching beyond traditional Conservative Party voters, making him, in their view, an electoral asset to the party.

Conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism, cronyism and bigotry.

As prime minister, his supporters praised him for "getting Brexit done", overseeing the UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme, which was amongst the fastest in the world, and being one of the first world leaders to offer humanitarian support to Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the country.

His tenure also saw several controversies and scandals, and is viewed as the most scandalous premiership of modern times by historians and biographers alike.

Johnson has commonly been described as a one-nation conservative, and political commentators have characterised his political style as opportunistic, populist and pragmatic.