Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and journalist. He is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He has been the Leader of the Conservative Party since 23 July 2019. Johnson is the Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He has been since 2015. He represented the constituency of Henley from 2001 to 2008.
In the 2008 Mayor of London election he was elected as London's second Mayor. He stopped working as mayor to run as an MP for the House of Commons in 2015. In July 2016, Johnson became Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. He resigned this position in July 2018. This was the same day that David Davis resigned as Brexit Secretary. Jeremy Hunt became the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs and Commonwealth Affairs after Johnson.
Johnson was educated at Eton. He went to Balliol College, Oxford where he studied Classics. He began his journalism career with "The Times." Later, he moved to "The Daily Telegraph" where he was assistant editor. He became editor of "The Spectator" in 1999. He was elected to the House of Commons in the 2001 general election. He became one of the most famous politicians in the country. He has also written several books.
Johnson served on the Conservative front bench under Michael Howard for a short time. He was the Shadow Minister for the Arts from April 2004 until November 2004. He was sacked after allegedly lying about a sex scandal. Johnson returned to the front bench when David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party in 2005. Johnson became Shadow Minister for Higher Education. He resigned as editor of "The Spectator" to spend more time on his new role.
On 26 August 2014, Johnson said he would stand as Conservative candidate for MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip in the 2015 General Election. He won the election. He did not run for the 2016 London mayoral election. Labour candidate Sadiq Khan became the new London mayor.
Johnson was in support of Brexit during the 2016 membership referendum. The vote decided that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union. Theresa May became the new Prime Minister. She chose Johnson as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in July 2016. Johnson left May's cabinet in July 2018 after her Brexit agreements failed.
Johnson became the party leader in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election. On 20 June, Johnson and Jeremy Hunt became the last two candidates in the election. He became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 24 July 2019. The Conservatives won the 2019 United Kingdom general election on 13 December 2019. Johnson continued as Prime Minister.
In early April 2020, Johnson was very sick due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He returned to work in late April.
Boris Johnson was born in a clinic at Upper East Side in New York City, New York. He is the eldest of the four children of Stanley Johnson. Stanley is a former Conservative MEP (Member of the European Parliament). He was also an employee of the European Commission and the World Bank. Boris Johnson's mother is the painter Charlotte Fawcett (later Wahl). She is the daughter of Sir James Fawcett, a prominent barrister and the president of the European Commission of Human Rights.
On his father's side Johnson is the great-grandson of Ali Kemal. Kemal was a liberal Turkish journalist and interior minister in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. He was murdered during the Turkish War of Independence. During World War I, Boris's grandfather and great aunt were recognised as British subjects. They took their grandmother's maiden name of Johnson. Johnson has described himself as a "one-man melting pot" because of his cosmopolitan ancestry. His ancestors were Muslims, Jews and Christians if one counts his great-grandparents. His father's maternal (his mother's) grandmother, Marie Louise de Pfeffel, was a descendent of Prince Paul of Württemberg. This was due to the Prince's relationship with a German actress. Johnson is a descendent of King George II of Great Britain through Prince Paul. Johnson is also a descendent of all the previous British royal houses through George's great-great-great grandfather, King James I of England.
Johnson and his family went back to England soon after he was born because his mother needed to take her Oxford finals. Johnson's sister Rachel was born a year later. As a child, Boris Johnson had severe (bad) deafness. He had many operations to have grommets put in his ears. He was reportedly quite quiet as a child. He was educated at the European School in Brussels, Ashdown House and then at Eton College. At Eton, he was a King's Scholar. He read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford. He was a Brackenbury scholar. He was also elected President of the Oxford Union at his second attempt (try). Radek Sikorski said that Johnson acted as a supporter of the Social Democratic Party to win the Union presidency. This was because the party was popular at the university. Johnson denies he did this. He said he was only the SDP's preferred candidate. Along with David Cameron he was a member of Oxford's Bullingdon Club. The club is a student dining society known for its raucous feasts.
In 1987 Johnson married Allegra Mostyn-Owen. The marriage lasted less than a year. It was dissolved in 1993. He married the barrister Marina Wheeler later the same year. Wheeler is the daughter of journalist and broadcaster Sir Charles Wheeler and his Sikh Indian wife, Dip Singh. The Wheeler and Johnson families have known each other for many years. Marina Wheeler was at the European School in Brussels at the same time as Boris Johnson. They have two sons—Theodore Apollo (born 1999) and Milo Arthur (born 1995)—and two daughters—Lara Lettice (born 1993) and Cassia Peaches (born 1997).
In 2016 Johnson renounced his American citizenship. He was American because he was born in New York. In 2018, Johnson and Wheeler announced their separation and soon divorced in 2020. He later developed a relationship with Carrie Symonds around the same time he separated from Wheeler. They became engaged in late 2019. Their first son was born on 29 April 2020. He was born at University College Hospital in London. His name is Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson. Symonds and Johnson got married in May 2021.
Johnson ran for MP of Clwyd South in the 1997 general election. He lost the election. In 2001, he was elected MP for Henley. He replaced Michael Heseltine. In 2004 he became Shadow Minister for the Arts after Nick Hawkins (the Shadow Home Affairs Spokesman) resigned. Johnson was vice-chairman of the Conservative Party from November 2003. He put an emphasis on campaigning.
Johnson was sacked from these high-profile posts in November 2004. He was accused of lying to Michael Howard about a four-year extramarital affair with Petronella Wyatt, "The Spectator"'s New York correspondent and former deputy editor. Johnson said the allegations were not true. He said they were "an inverted pyramid of piffle". However, Howard sacked Johnson because he believed press reports showed Johnson had lied, and not because of the affair itself.