Boris Johnson

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (, born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023, having previously been MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008. Johnson attended Eton College and studied 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 from 1999 to 2005 he was the editor of The Spectator. Following his election to Parliament in 2001, he became a member of the shadow cabinets of Michael Howard and later David Cameron. Johnson was elected Mayor of London in 2008 and resigned from the House of Commons. He was re-elected mayor in 2012. In the 2015 general election he was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and the following year did not seek re-election as mayor. Johnson was a prominent figure in the successful Vote Leave campaign for Brexit in the 2016 European Union membership referendum. After the referendum, Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him foreign secretary in her cabinet. He resigned from the position in 2018 in protest at both the Chequers Agreement and May's approach to Brexit. Johnson defeated Jeremy Hunt in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election to succeed May, who resigned after Parliament's repeated rejections of her Brexit withdrawal agreement. Johnson re-opened Brexit negotiations and in early September prorogued Parliament, with the Supreme Court later that month ruling the action to have been unlawful. After agreeing to a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement which replaced the Irish backstop with the Northern Ireland Protocol, but failing to win parliamentary support for the agreement, Johnson called a snap general election to be held in December 2019. In the election, he led the Conservative Party to their largest victory since 1987. On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union and entered a transition period of trade negotiations that led to the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. A decisive event that occurred during Johnson's premiership was the COVID-19 pandemic.