Boris Johnson Becomes UK Prime Minister

At the second time of trying, former mayor of London Boris Johnson has finally become the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

After weeks and weeks of campaigning in the Conservative Party leadership election, the time has finally come for Boris Johnson as he picks up the mantle from outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May.

Of the Conservative Party membership, a total of 139,320 votes were cast, with 509 votes rejected. The turnout of the party was 87.4%.

Johnson won the premiership with 92,153 votes compared to Jeremy Hunt’s 46,656, almost two thirds of the party membership, and with 66% of the vote, comfortably over the pundits assessment of him needing 60%+ to have an effective mandate.  Indeed, garnering as close as damn-it to two-thirds of the party membership, Boris now has that effective mandate, and will be easily able to bat away any doubters, not only within his own party, but in the country as a whole.

Johnson enters Downing Street at one of the most pivotal and divisive times in British politics, with Brexit in the balance, a minority government in power and political parties on all sides suffering from internal strife.  Both at home and abroad, the new Prime Minister faces challenges right out of the traps, so it won’t be long before the country gets to learn exactly what muscle, nerve and attitude he is bringing to the show.

In an interesting piece of irony – a new US President is marked on his first 100 days in office, and it tends to scope the rest of his time in office.   Boris Johnson’s 100th day in office will be 31st October – the scheduled “Brexit Day” on which Johnson said the UK must “Do or Die”.

Speaking of US Presidents, Donald Trump was quick off the mark on Twitter to congratulate Johnson, tweeting; “Congratulations to Boris Johnson on becoming the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He will be great!”

Boris also hit twitter to thank his supporters, posting; “Thank you all for the incredible honour you have done me. The time for campaigning is over and the time for work begins to unite our country and party, deliver Brexit and defeat Corbyn. I will work flat out to repay your confidence.”

For Boris, becoming Prime Minister might well turn out to be the easy part of his premiership when the curtain finally falls on his time at the top. Never before in peacetime has a British Prime Minister had so many political fish to fry and no fryer to work with.

In the months that lay ahead, political journalists are going to be kept very very busy. If Boris makes it to Christmas as Prime Minister, he will have done very well indeed.

In fact, if Boris is in Downing Street at the start of 2020, he will likely remain there for a considerable time into the future.