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Portrait of Boris Johnson

Prime Ministers · 21st century

Boris Johnson

1964– · British

Conservative

In office: 2019–2022

Boris Johnson, a former journalist and two-term Mayor of London, became prime minister in 2019 and won an 80-seat majority on the promise to "Get Brexit Done". His premiership saw Britain leave the EU, the Covid-19 pandemic and strong support for Ukraine after Russia's 2022 invasion. Partygate, in which he became the first sitting prime minister found to have broken the law, and a wave of ministerial resignations forced him out in 2022; he left Parliament in 2023.

How to spot them

  • ▸'Get Brexit Done'; 'oven-ready' deal
  • ▸Mayor of London 2008–2016: 'Boris bikes' and the zip wire
  • ▸Partygate and a fixed penalty notice
  • ▸Born in New York; Eton and Balliol; full name Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
  • ▸Author of The Churchill Factor; 'Hasta la vista, baby'

In office

'Get Brexit Done' and the 80-seat majority (2019)

December 2019 general election victory; the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020

Prorogation of Parliament ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court (2019)

Unanimous judgment in the Miller/Cherry case, September 2019

'You must stay at home' Covid-19 lockdown (2020)

First national lockdown announced on 23 March 2020; he was later treated in intensive care for Covid

Partygate (2021–2022)

Lockdown-breaking gatherings in Downing Street; he received a fixed penalty notice in April 2022

The AUKUS security pact (2021)

Defence partnership between Australia, the UK and the US

The Pincher affair and mass ministerial resignations (2022)

Resignations led by Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid forced him to announce his departure in July 2022

Key ideas

  • Levelling up: the promise to reduce regional inequality
  • The Northern Ireland Protocol, part of his Brexit deal
  • A Commons Privileges Committee found he had misled Parliament over Partygate; he resigned as an MP in June 2023

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born in New York City in 1964; renounced his US citizenship in 2016
  • •Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford Union
  • •Sacked by The Times for a fabricated quote; later Telegraph Brussels correspondent and editor of The Spectator
  • •Foreign Secretary 2016–2018; MP for Henley and later Uxbridge and South Ruislip
  • •Married Carrie Symonds at Westminster Cathedral in 2021, the first prime minister to marry in office since Lord Liverpool in 1822
  • •Published his memoir Unleashed in 2024

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources