Boris Johnson

British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He served as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016, and as Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018. Johnson identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically and socially liberal policies.

On 23 July 2019 he was elected new Conservative leader in a ballot of party members and became the next UK prime minister. On 24 July 2019, Queen Elizabeth II accepted Theresa May's resignation and appointed Johnson as Prime Minister. In his first speech in the role, Johnson promised that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union on 31 October 2019.

In August 2019, Johnson controversially advised Queen Elizabeth II to prorogue Parliament from 10 September to 14 October; on 24 September this action was unanimously ruled to be unlawful and of no effect by the Supreme Court. Subsequently, in a snap general election in December 2019, Johnson led the Conservative Party to their biggest victory since 1987, and biggest percentage vote share of any party since 1979.

Initially coming to public attention as a journalist, he became editor of The Spectator in 1999, then later served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015, and was the MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008.

Johnson is the eldest of the four children of Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative Member of the European Parliament and employee of the European Commission and World Bank, and the painter Charlotte Johnson Wahl (née Fawcett), the daughter of Sir James Fawcett, a barrister and president of the European Commission of Human Rights. Johnson's maternal great-grandparents were palaeographer Elias Avery Lowe and translator H. T. Lowe-Porter.