Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, journalist, and popular historian. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from July 2019 until September 2022. Johnson was Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip from May 2015 until his resignation in June 2023. Earlier in his career, Johnson was the MP for Henley from 2001 until 2008, and Mayor of London, completing two terms in office between 2008 and 2016. A member of the Conservative Party, Johnson considers himself a "One-Nation Tory" and has been described as a libertarian due to his association with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies. He is partly of Turkish descent.
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If you do that you have to answer the question what next? What if the Iranians do rush for a nuclear weapon? Are we seriously saying that we are going to bomb those facilities at Fordo and Natanz? Is that really a realistic possibility? Or do we work round what we have got and push back on Iran together?
[The attack was] a sign [from President Putin that] no-one could escape the long arm of Russian revenge ... [The attack] was a sign that President Putin or the Russian state wanted to give to potential defectors in their own agencies: 'This is what happens to you if you decide to support a country with a different set of values. You can expect to be assassinated'.
[In the Commons on 7 November 2017, after criticism his earlier comments might make Zaghari-Ratcliffe's position worse] My point was that I disagreed with the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime - not that I wanted to lend any credence to Iranian allegations that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been engaged in such activity.
I accept that my remarks could have been clearer in that respect, and I'm glad to provide this clarification.
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[At a Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting on 1 November 2017] When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it. [Neither] Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.
There's a group of UK business people, wonderful guys who want to invest in , on the coast, near where Gaddafi was actually captured and executed as some of you may have seen. And they literally have a brilliant vision to turn Sirte, with the help of the municipality of Sirte, to turn it into the next . The only thing they've got to do is clear the dead bodies away and then they'll be there.
I think Rex Tillerson is absolutely clear in his view, which is the same as mine. You have got to engage with Russia, but you have got to engage in a very guarded way. You have got to beware of what they are up to. There is no question that, when you look at Russian activity on the cyber front, when you look at what they are doing in the western Balkans, when you look at what has been happening in the Ukraine, you've got to be very, very cautious. I think it is entirely right to have a dual track approach. We don't want to get into a new Cold War. That's something London and Washington are completely at one on. But nor do we want Russian behaviour to continue as it is - and Rex Tillerson has been very clear about that.
We can all spend an awfully long time going over lots of stuff that I've written over the last 30 years... all of which in my view have been taken out of context, but never mind... I'm afraid that there is such a rich thesaurus now of things that I have said that have been one way or another, through what alchemy I do not know, somehow misconstrued that it would take me too long to engage in a full global itinerary of apology to all concerned.