Scandals finally forced the Conservatives to abandon their leader, as Johnson announces he will resign.
Boris Johnson always seemed to defy political odds.
He went the typical path of the political class — Eton– and Oxford-educated — but sold himself as an outsider and populist man-of-the-people, messy hair and all. He was fired from journalism for fabrication, and his reporting and political careers were marred with scandal after scandal, professional and personal, and sometimes a mix of the two. For some of his supporters, his gaffes and his disregard for the norms added to his appeal.
And he continued to rise: the Conservative mayor of London, a Labour town; a prominent face of the “Leave” campaign that prevailed in the 2016 Brexit referendum; the leader of a party that won a historic majority in 2019, making him the prime minister with the biggest Conservative majority in three decades. As prime minister, he officially took the United Kingdom out of the European Union after years of a divisive Brexit debate.
