Boris Johnson as prime minister by Saiorse McKnight Posner

On 24 July 2019, Boris Johnson became the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Here, I will
summarise who he is and what this means for our country.

Jeremy Hunt congratulating Boris Johnson for his win

Why and How he became PM?
On 7 June, Theresa May announced that she was standing down as Conservative Party leader after
failing to get Parliament to agree on a deal for Brexit and she had also lost the support of many in
her own party. She said she would remain in the position until someone else was elected.
Eventually it was narrowed down to two men after others were eliminated through the MP balloting
process, Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson. Hunt had served as culture, heath and most recently
foreign secretary and Johnson was former foreign secretary as well as mayor of London.
Conservative Party members were then allowed to vote for their choice of leader and Johnson won
with 92,153 votes whilst Hunt only succeeded in collecting 46,656 hence Boris Johnson became our
new Prime Minister.

Who is he and why is he controversial?
Over the years Johnson has shown himself to be a charismatic and popular choice amongst the
electorate. He is evidently quick witted, educated and knowledgeable as evidenced by his many
quips on Have I got news for you. Yet he has repeatedly throughout his time in the public eye, both
as a journalist as well as MP of Henley, Uxbridge and South Ruislip, made himself a controversial
figure with statements he has said and mistakes he has made. He has been caught a number of
times lying in newspapers and interviews, which resulted in being fired from The Times in 1987 for
creating false statements in his articles. He has on numerous occasions given incorrect statements
without factual backing. Again in his recent hustings, he claimed that EU had ‘pointless, expensive,
environmentally-damaging’ regulations in regards to fish suppliers yet it emerged that those were
introduced by the UK not the EU. During a 2017 select committee hearing, whilst serving as foreign
secretary, he wrongly stated that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was not on holiday in Iran but training as
a journalist which caused her to incarcerated for allegedly spying and she is still currently detained
there. Moreover, he has made offensive statements towards women who wear burqas and niqabs
by comparing them to ‘letterboxes’ and compared same-sex marriage to polygamy and bestiality in
his book ‘Friends, Voters, Countrymen’. In his personal life, he has lied about his extramarital affair
leading then Tory leader Michael Howard to fire him from Shadow Arts minister and Party Vice-
Chairman after he refused to resign. In June this year, a tape was released that supposedly
contained him and his partner Carrie Symonds arguing and her shouting ‘Get out’. A photo was
released showing them happily together but there is speculation about whether it was taken before
or after the event and Boris refused to comment.

What is his plan as PM?
His policies included new immigration laws following a similar model to the Australian-style points-
based system, as well as an improvement in public services for the country. He intends to increase
government spending for the NHS to decrease wait times. He has also announced that there will be
20,000 more police officers on the street, something Theresa May refused to do claiming there was
‘no correlation between certain crimes and police numbers’. However, it was conservative policy
that took 24,000 police officers off the force since they came into power. Johnson also intends to
increase stop and search powers to reduce violent crimes. For education, he plans to increase the
minimum pupil funding in schools again which was reduced significantly under the conservative
government and he voted for these reductions. He declared that there will also be investments into
vital infrastructure such as transport and housing. Furthermore, he is very pro-UK union and against
the idea of another Scottish independence referendum claiming that the 2014 referendum was
meant to be a once in a generation vote. In terms of Brexit, initially he had intended to leave with or
without a deal by 31 st October however this is no longer an option.

Despite all of this evidence which would have scuppered the chances of a less charismatic politician,
he has succeeded in his life ambition to be Prime Minister. Whether it will be a success for the UK
depends on your political standpoint.