Boris Johnson is a British politician, prime minister of the United Kingdom, and leader of the Conservative Party. He has been a member of Parliament between 2001-2008 and from 2015 to the present. He was appointed to the Cabinet of former Prime Minister Theresa May as the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2016 until 2018. He served as the mayor of London from 2008 until 2016. During his premiership, Johnson was marred by a COVID-19 party scandal that forced him to announce his resignation in July 2022. He will remain at Downing Street until a new leader of his party is elected.
While serving in and out of office, Johnson had a long stint in journalism, first as a Brussels correspondent and political columnist for The Daily Telegraph and later as the editor of The Spectator magazine from 1999 to 2005. As mayor of London, Johnson was a proponent of the successful vote for Britain to leave the European Union. Following Theresa May's failure to secure a Brexit deal, he resigned in protest from her Cabinet.
As prime minister and conservative leader, Johnson initially failed to withdraw Britain from the European Union because Parliament would not pass an exit agreement he secured with the EU. Therefore, he called for a snap election for December 2019 and was able to lead the Conservative Party to their largest victory in decades, securing 43.6% of the vote. By January 2020, the United Kingdom had left the EU, and Johnson's political standing was stronger than ever.
The COVID-19 pandemic proved ultimately to be a major issue for Johnson due to the scandal known as "Partygate." At the height of the British government's restrictions on public gatherings, Johnson and other members of his Cabinet were attending parties at 10 Downing Street. British police later issued penalty notices for many government officials, including Johnson and his wife, for breaking pandemic restrictions. After barely surviving a no-confidence vote from his party in June 2022, a mass exodus of Cabinet officials led to Johnson announcing the end of his political saga the next month.
