Who is Boris Johnson: Biography, Personal Life, Career and Net Worth

Biography of Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson was born on June 19, 1964 in New York City, New York, USA as Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. He has been married to Marina Wheeler since May 8, 1993. They have four children. He was previously married to Allegra Mostyn-Owen.

As a child, Johnson lived in New York City, London, and Brussels before attending boarding school in England. He won a scholarship to Eton College and later studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was president of the Oxford Union.

After briefly working as a management consultant, Johnson embarked on a career in journalism. He started as a reporter for The Times in 1987 but was fired for fabricating a quotation. He then began working for The Daily Telegraph, where he served as a correspondent covering the European Community (1989–94) and later as an assistant editor (1994–99). In 1994 Johnson became a political columnist for The Spectator, and in 1999 he was named the magazine’s editor, continuing in that role until 2005.

Career of Boris Johnson

Election To Parliament

In 1997 Johnson was selected as the Conservative candidate for Clwyd South in the House of Commons, but he lost decisively to the Labour Party incumbent Martyn Jones. Soon after, Johnson began appearing on a variety of television shows, beginning in 1998 with the BBC talk program Have I Got News for You.

Johnson won the contest in the Henley-on-Thames constituency. However, Johnson’s political rise was threatened on a number of occasions. Despite such public rebukes, Johnson was reelected to his parliamentary seat in 2005.

Mayor Of London

Johnson entered into the London mayoral election in July 2007, and on May 1, 2008, Johnson won a narrow victory, seen by many as a repudiation of the national Labour government led by Gordon Brown.

In 2012 Johnson was reelected mayor, besting Livingstone again. His win was one of the few bright spots for the Conservative Party in the midterm local elections in which it lost more than 800 seats in England, Scotland, and Wales.

Return To Parliament, The Brexit Referendum, And Failed Pursuit Of The Conservative Leadership

Johnson returned to Parliament in 2015, winning the west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He retained his post as mayor of London.

Before leaving the office of mayor—having chosen not to run for reelection in 2016—Johnson became the leading spokesman for the “Leave” campaign in the run-up to the June 23, 2016. In that capacity, he faced off with Cameron, who was the country’s most prominent proponent of Britain remaining in the EU, and came under criticism for equating the EU’s efforts to unify Europe with those undertaken by Napoleon I and Adolf Hitler.

When all of the votes were counted in the referendum, some 52 percent of those who went to the polls had opted for Britain to leave the EU, prompting Cameron to announce his imminent resignation as prime minister. Many observers believed that the path now had been laid for Johnson’s ascent to the party leadership and the premiership.

Tenure As Foreign Secretary

In April 2018 Johnson defended Theresa May’s decision to join the United States and France in the strategic air strikes that were undertaken against the regime of Syrian Pres. Johnson himself was taken to task in some quarters for statements he had made regarding an incident in March 2018. In May 2018 Johnson was the target of a prank—also thought to have been perpetrated by Russia—when a recording was made of a telephone conversation between him and a pair of individuals, one of whom fooled Johnson by pretending to be the new prime minister of Armenia.

After Brexit secretary David Davis resigned on July 8, saying that he could not continue as Britain’s chief negotiator with the EU because May was “giving too much away, too easily,” Johnson followed suit the next day, tendering his resignation as foreign secretary.

Boris Johnson. Photo: CafeF.com

Ascent To Prime Minister

Meanwhile, Johnson remained a persistent critic of May’s attempts to push her version of Brexit through Parliament. After that, the promise of May’s imminent departure won Johnson’s support for her plan; however, once again it went down to defeat. May announced that she would resign as party leader on June 7 but remain as caretaker prime minister until her party had chosen her successor.

Johnson had campaigned on a promise to leave the EU without a deal (“no-deal Brexit”) if the exit agreement with the EU was not altered to his satisfaction by October 31, 2019, the revised departure deadline that had been negotiated by May. On July 24 Johnson officially became prime minister.