Boris Johnson

**In office**
24 July 2019 – 6 September 2022

**In office**
26 July 2019 – 6 September 2022

**In office**
23 January 2019 – 5 September 2022

**In office**
13 July 2016 – 9 July 2018

**In office**
3 May 2008 – 9 May 2016

## Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

**Assumed office**
7 May 2015

**In office**
7 June 2001 – 4 June 2008

**Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson** (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who has been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party since July 2019. He was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. Johnson has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015 and was previously MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008. He has been described as adhering to the ideology of one-nation and national conservatism.
Johnson attended Eton College and read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford. He was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1986. In 1989, he became the Brussels correspondent, and later political columnist, for The Daily Telegraph, and was editor of The Spectator magazine from 1999 to 2005.

After being elected to Parliament in 2001, Johnson was a shadow minister under Conservative leaders Michael Howard and David Cameron. In 2008, he was elected mayor of London and resigned from the House of Commons; he was re-elected as mayor in 2012. In the 2015 election, Johnson was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. The following year, he did not seek re-election as mayor. He became a prominent figure in the successful Vote Leave campaign for Brexit in the 2016 European Union (EU) membership referendum. Theresa May appointed him foreign secretary after the referendum; he resigned the position two years later in protest to the Chequers Agreement and May’s approach to Brexit.

In 2019, Johnson was elected Conservative leader and appointed prime minister. He re-opened Brexit negotiations and in early September controversially prorogued Parliament; the Supreme Court ruled the action unlawful later that month. After agreeing to a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement with the EU, which replaced the Irish backstop with a new Northern Ireland Protocol, but failing to win parliamentary support for the agreement, Johnson called a snap election for December 2019 in which he led the Conservative Party to victory with 43.6 per cent of the vote, and the party's largest seat share since 1987. On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom withdrew from the EU, entering into a transition period and trade negotiations leading to the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. The COVID-19 pandemic became a major issue of his premiership; the government responded with various emergency powers, introduced measures across society to mitigate its impact, and approved the rollout of a nationwide vaccination programme. However, he faced a controversy known as "Partygate" over his breaching of COVID-19 regulations and receipt of a fixed penalty notice, when he became the first British prime minister to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office.

The publishing of the Sue Gray report and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction led to a confidence vote in his leadership among Conservative MPs in June 2022, which he survived. Revelations in July 2022 over his hiring of Chris Pincher as Government Deputy Chief Whip, however, led to a mass resignation of members of the government and to Johnson resigning as party leader. He remains in office in a caretaker capacity pending a leadership election.

Johnson is a controversial figure in British politics. Supporters have praised him as humorous, witty, and entertaining, with an appeal stretching beyond traditional Conservative voters. Conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism, cronyism, lack of integrity and bigotry. Johnson's political positions generally follow one-nation conservatism, and commentators have described his political style as opportunistic, populist, and pragmatic.