Boris Johnson, a former foreign secretary who helped lead the 2016 Brexit refere...
LONDON - Boris Johnson, a former foreign secretary who helped lead the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, is the runaway favorite to win a final pair of ballots on Thursday that will whittle down the race to replace Prime Minister Theresa May to two candidates.
Despite a series of scandals in the past and criticism about his attention to detail, Johnson has dominated the race since May announced a month ago that she would step down after repeatedly failing to get her Brexit deal ratified by parliament. Then around 160,000 Conservative Party grassroots members will vote on who will be their leader - and Britain’s next prime minister - by the end of July. Bookmakers give Johnson an 89 percent probability of winning.
Born in New York, Johnson was educated at Eton, Britain’s most exclusive school, and at Balliol College, Oxford. He began his career at a management consultancy in the City of London but dropped out after a week.Hired by The Daily Telegraph, Johnson infuriated European officials and delighted then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by lampooning the European Economic Community establishment with a host of sometimes misleading reports from Brussels.
In 2016, he became one of the most recognizable faces of the Brexit campaign which won the referendum with 52% of the votes cast versus 48% for staying in.
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