Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2016 to 2018 and as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. Johnson has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015, having previously been MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008.
In 2019, Johnson was elected Leader of the Conservative Party, defeating Jeremy Hunt. He re-opened Brexit negotiations and in early September controversially prorogued Parliament; the Supreme Court later that month ruled the action unlawful. After agreeing to a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement, which replaced the Irish backstop with a new Northern Ireland Protocol, but failed to win parliamentary support for the agreement.
Johnson called a snap election for December 2019 in which he led the Conservative Party to victory with 43.6 per cent of the vote, and the party’s largest seat share since 1987. On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom withdrew from the EU, entering into a transition period and trade negotiations leading to the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
The COVID-19 pandemic became a major issue of his premiership; the government responded by introducing various emergency powers and measures across society to mitigate the pandemic’s impact, and approved the rollout of a nationwide vaccination programme. Beginning in December 2021, it emerged that government officials had attended social gatherings which breached COVID-19 regulations, a controversy known as “Partygate”.
In April 2022, Johnson received a fixed penalty notice for attending one of these gatherings, becoming the first prime minister of the United Kingdom to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office. The publishing of the Sue Gray report and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction led in June 2022 to a vote of confidence in his leadership among Conservative MPs, which he survived.
In July 2022, revelations over his hiring of Chris Pincher as Deputy Chief Whip led to a mass resignation of ministers from his government and to Johnson announcing his resignation. He left office on 6 September after the leadership election for his successor was completed, and was succeeded by Liz Truss, his Foreign Secretary. He remains in the House of Commons as a backbencher.
Johnson is a controversial figure in British politics. Supporters have praised him as humorous, witty, and entertaining, with an appeal stretching beyond traditional Conservative Party voters. Conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism, cronyism and bigotry. Johnson’s political positions have sometimes been described as following one-nation conservatism, and commentators have characterised his political style as opportunistic, populist, or pragmatic.
Some of the best quotes from Boris Johnson are listed below.
- “But if people want to swim in the Thames, if they want to take their lives into their own hands, then they should be able to do so with all the freedom and exhilaration of our woad-painted ancestors.” – Boris Johnson
- “Huge numbers of people in London depend on their cars. Fuel duty is becoming a big factor in people’s cost of living. I believe in trying to ease these burdens.” – Boris Johnson
- “I always believe writing is an indispensable part of one’s political armoury.” – Boris Johnson
- “I am hoping very much to get re-elected but it is going to be a tough fight.” – Boris Johnson
- “I am supporting David Cameron purely out of cynical self-interest.” – Boris Johnson
- “I believe in immigration. But I feel people think it would be better if there was an Australian-style points based system so we could actually get a good system.” – Boris Johnson
- “I believe we now have a glorious opportunity: we can pass our laws and set our taxes entirely according to the needs of the U.K. economy.” – Boris Johnson
- “I do think human beings cannot be faulted for wishing to judge themselves and their lives and their achievements by others around them; that is a natural human feeling.” – Boris Johnson
- “I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.” – Boris Johnson
- “I have more in common with a three-toed sloth or a one-eyed pterodactyl or a Kalamata olive than I have with Winston Churchill.” – Boris Johnson
- “I have not been more robust towards female rather than male assembly members and I do not believe I have been remotely sexist.” – Boris Johnson
- “I just find it absolutely bizarre that we are being lectured by the Americans about giving up our sovereignty and giving up control when the Americans won’t even sign up to the international convention on the law of the seas, let alone the International Criminal Court.” – Boris Johnson
- “I lead a life of blameless domesticity and always have done.” – Boris Johnson
- “I love swimming in rivers, and well remember once jumping in at Chiswick.” – Boris Johnson
- “I love tennis with a passion. I challenged Boris Becker to a match once and he said he was up for it but he never called back. I bet I could make him run around.” – Boris Johnson
- “I promised to run the most open and transparent administration in Britain. That is why, with this brutally honest and unprecedented progress report, I am determined to level with Londoners.” – Boris Johnson
- “I suppose with houses and assets, then I guess I would be a millionaire. But so are a lot of people.” – Boris Johnson
- “I think I’m basically a liberal Conservative – I believe in low tax, spirit of free enterprise, and in making sure that we as politicians create the framework for business to produce the dosh that we’re going to need to pay for the poorest. And the longer I live, the more I think that we all have a duty to each other.” – Boris Johnson
- “I think people have a legitimate right to minimize their tax obligations if they can, but they should pay their fair whack. I do think it’s important to be transparent.” – Boris Johnson
- “I think the risks that people see of terrorism are incredibly important but we are very confident we have got the right people on it and the risks have been minimized.” – Boris Johnson
- “I want London to be a competitive, dynamic place to come to work.” – Boris Johnson
- “I want London to be the most cycle-friendly city on Earth, and I want more people to be happy and safe on bicycles.” – Boris Johnson
- “I want to win and I want to be in office.” – Boris Johnson
- “I want you to know that I have nothing against Orlando, though you are, of course, far more likely to get shot or robbed there than in London.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’d like thousands of schools as good as the one I went to, Eton.” – Boris Johnson
- “If I’d been on the Remain side I would have tried to have seen the best in Europe and tried to explain that. Instead, what they’ve done is endlessly try and talk up what they see as the weaknesses of Britain and they aren’t there. That’s a total mistake.” – Boris Johnson
- “If we get outside the EU, if we leave the EU system, we will be relieved of a huge amount of unnecessary regulation that is holding this country back. We will be able to set our own priorities, make our own laws and set our own tax policies to suit the needs of this country. We have a huge opportunity also to make people’s votes count for more.” – Boris Johnson
- “If we judged everybody by the stupid, unguarded things they blurt out to their nearest and dearest, then we wouldn’t ever get anywhere.” – Boris Johnson
- “If we vote to Leave and take back control, all sorts of opportunities open up. Including doing new free trade deals around the world, restoring Britain’s seat on all sorts of international bodies, restoring health to our democracy and belief to our democracy.” – Boris Johnson
- “If you turn a blind eye to fare evasion, if you accustom people to getting away with minor crime, you are making it more likely that they will go on to commit more serious crimes. That is why we have so much disorder in London. It is a disgrace.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’m a one-nation Tory.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’m in politics to change things – if possible, for the better. I was a journalist for a long time, but I had a kind of midlife crisis, and I decided I needed to do something to get on the pitch and stop endlessly kicking over other peoples’ sandcastles.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’m made up of immigrant stock. I went to a primary school in London. I grew up eating Spangles, why shouldn’t I be as well placed to speak for Londoners as anyone else?” – Boris Johnson
- “I’m not one of those people who believes in going endlessly around finger wagging and ticking people off for occasional colourful use of language.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’m not particularly politically correct, so I tend to reflect what I think are the terrible realities of life, which I think are, generally speaking, conservative.” – Boris Johnson
- “It is easy to make promises – it is hard work to keep them.” – Boris Johnson
- “It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time.” – Boris Johnson
- “It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time. But in the end you have a great sense of personal dissatisfaction.” – Boris Johnson
- “It just happens I write fast and always have done.” – Boris Johnson
- “It would be a sad day if we British stopped being cynical, but you sometimes wonder whether we overdo it.” – Boris Johnson
- “It’s not reasonable for companies that have chief executives and board members who are paid very considerable sums to subsidise low pay through in-work benefits.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’ve always sort of thought that politics was a high and noble calling and a good thing to do.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’ve done eight years as mayor of London. I enjoyed it hugely; it was a massive privilege.” – Boris Johnson
- “I’ve got more in common with a three-toed sloth than I have with Winston Churchill. There is no easy comparison with any modern politician. The more you read about him, the more completely amazed you are about what he did – his energy, his literary fecundity, his ability to work – just unbelievable energy.” – Boris Johnson
- “London is a fantastic creator of jobs – but many of these jobs are going to people who don’t originate in this country.” – Boris Johnson
- “London is the most commercially important city in Europe, and it’s the most populous city. It should be for the whole of the European continent what New York is to America. That’s what it should be.” – Boris Johnson
- “London is—after Athens and Rome—the third most influential city in history.” – Boris Johnson
- “Most people would accept that people come to London from across the world, from all kinds of backgrounds, and are accepted here irrespective of their origins.” – Boris Johnson
- “My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive.” – Boris Johnson
- “My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.” – Boris Johnson
- “My point was very simple, and it was that it is absolutely absurd for the United States of America to continue to urge us further down the line towards a federal superstate when the U.S. has not even signed up to the U.N. Convention on Hum” – Boris Johnson
- “My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.” – Boris Johnson
- “My speaking style was criticized by no less an authority than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a low moment, my friends, to have my rhetorical skills denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.” – Boris Johnson
- “Never in my life did I think I would be congratulated by Mick Jagger for achieving anything.” – Boris Johnson
- “Obama’s extraordinary political skills suggest he is more than capable of rising above any personal historical grudges he may have inherited.” – Boris Johnson
- “One thing you have got to do politically is to identify the ties that bind society together and try to strengthen them.” – Boris Johnson
- “Ping-pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century, and it was called Wiff-waff! And there, I think, you have the difference between us and the rest of the world. Other nations, the French, looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner; we looked at it an saw an opportunity to play Wiff-waff.” – Boris Johnson
- “So I’m definitely in favour of stimulating the dynamic wealth creation sectors of the economy.” – Boris Johnson
- “Some people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.” – Boris Johnson
- “Sometimes I can think of so many ways of expressing myself that I feel I’m an old typewriter, and too many keys come forward at once – and I get jammed.” – Boris Johnson
- “That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me.” – Boris Johnson
- “The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest; and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.” – Boris Johnson
- “The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest, and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.” – Boris Johnson
- “The dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP they have run out of better ideas.” – Boris Johnson
- “The euro has become a means by which superior German productivity is able to gain an absolutely unbeatable advantage over the whole eurozone territory.” – Boris Johnson
- “The idea that the EU is somehow the guarantor of peace on the continent – that is in itself rash, in my view, and risks undermining the vital role of Nato.” – Boris Johnson
- “The Italians, who used to be a great motor-manufacturing power, have been absolutely destroyed by the euro – as was intended by the Germans.” – Boris Johnson
- “The job of mayor of London is unbelievably taxing, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics.” – Boris Johnson
- “The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition.” – Boris Johnson
- “The Remain campaign… I’ve never seen a more miserable offering. All they are saying is stay in and we’ll do our best to make sure that Britain’s Parliamentary independence isn’t eroded faster than we can possibly imagine.” – Boris Johnson
- “The truth is that the history of the last couple of thousand years has been broadly repeated attempts by various people or institutions – in a Freudian way – to rediscover the lost childhood of Europe, this golden age of peace and prosperity under the Romans, by trying to unify it.” – Boris Johnson
- “There are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.” – Boris Johnson
- “There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge.” – Boris Johnson
- “There’s an idea that London is a planet on its own: that it’s starting to diverge from the rest of the solar system. We need to combat that.” – Boris Johnson
- “This is an absolute turning point in the story of our country because I think if we go on with being enmeshed in the E.U., it will continue to erode our democracy. That is something that worries me.” – Boris Johnson
- “Times have been tough, the economy has been tough. But I want to bring forward a fantastic manifesto for taking the city forwards.” – Boris Johnson
- “We are experiencing such large support for the Olympic relay that our advice is to stay in your neighbourhood, stay in your borough and wait for it to come near you.” – Boris Johnson
- “We can find our voice in the world again: a voice that is commensurate with the fifth-biggest economy on Earth.” – Boris Johnson
- “We cannot turn our backs on Europe. We are part of Europe.” – Boris Johnson
- “We were told by President Obama that in respect of international trade, we would have to get to the back of the queue – not a position that America normally requires the United Kingdom to be in when it comes to other matters, such as the Iraq War.” – Boris Johnson
- “What I really think about Banksy is I think he’s a genius; he’s a great artist, and I like his stuff. But he’s got to accept it if, from time to time, someone will need to paint over his work.” – Boris Johnson
- “What I worry about is that people are losing confidence, losing energy, losing enthusiasm, and there’s a real opportunity to get them into work.” – Boris Johnson
- “When lorry drivers come up behind me and I’m cycling, innocently keeping to my side of the road, and they decide because they are so big, and their lorry is so powerful, and they just want to clear me out of the road, and they hoot aggressively, then I do see red a bit. I do.” – Boris Johnson
