An unmistakable figure on Britain’s political stage

LONDON — Top Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson, who pulled off one of his most sensational coups de theatre on Thursday, is an unmistakable figure on Britain’s political stage with his blond mop-top and bumbling manner.

The former London mayor shocked the nation by announcing he would not, after all, join the race to be Conservative Party leader and prime minister, triggering immediate derision on social media.

“Baby Boris goes back to the nursery while grown-ups clean up his mess,” wrote Twitter user @ScoopAlley, one of the more printable comments denouncing Johnson for plunging Britain into its worst turmoil for decades and then not being prepared to take charge. Dubbed “Boxit” online, it was all the more stunning given that the former journalist was one step from his dream of succeeding his old Etonian and Oxford University friend David Cameron at 10 Downing Street.

It came exactly a week after Britain’s vote to quit the EU, a victory for the Leave campaign of which Johnson was the figurehead. The leadership ambitions of the former Brussels-based journalist have been the worst-kept secret in British politics, ever since victory in London’s mayoral race eight years ago sent his profile skyrocketing.

However, there were those within the party who felt naked ambition drove him to join the Leave campaign, against the best interests of the party.

Former prime minister John Major had dismissed Johnson as a “court jester” with no hope of leading the Tories.

But the public appeared to be able to forgive his inconsistencies and frequent gaffes, twice electing him as a Conservative mayor of London — a Labour Party stronghold — and helping him to defy the odds and lead Britain out of the EU.

Known to millions simply as Boris, he was born in New York in 1964 as Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson into a competitive and high-achieving family. His father, Stanley, was a Conservative member of the European Parliament, one brother, Jo, is a minister in Cameron’s government and his sister, Rachel, is a journalist and writer. All three gave their support to the Remain camp.

Rachel Johnson told her brother’s biographer that, as a child, he wanted to be “king of the world” when he grew up. Johnson won a scholarship to Eton, one of Britain’s most prestigious schools, which Cameron attended two years below him.

The pair were then contemporaries at Oxford University and both members of the Bullingdon Club, an elite, all-male dining society known for its rowdy behaviour. Biographers say Johnson was touted as a future prime minister at Oxford, while Cameron kept a lower profile, sowing the seeds of their rivalry in government.

After graduating, Johnson became a journalist, working at The Times and The Daily Telegraph newspapers — including as Brussels correspondent — and editing right-wing political magazine The Spectator. He became a legislator for the then opposition Conservatives in 2001 and was later appointed as a shadow arts minister before being sacked from the role over accusations of lying about an alleged extra-marital affair.

In 2008, he became London mayor and stepped down from the House of Commons.

Despite constant speculation, Johnson had always batted away rumours about his political ambitions, once saying that his chances of being prime minister were on a par with “my being reincarnated as an olive”.

After successfully standing for re-election in 2012 Johnson left City Hall in May to spearhead the Leave campaign, whose shock victory last week triggered turmoil in Westminster, which is set to continue long beyond Thursday’s dramatic events.