The British political scene, still reeling from the Brexit vote, was further electrified when Boris Johnson, once favourite to be Prime Minister, was appointed Foreign Secretary by new Prime Minister Theresa May.
In putting a Brexiter in as the UK’s version of Secretary of State, May is rewarding a former rival – rather like President Obama appointed his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, as his Secretary of State.
Having successfully led the campaign for Britain to vote to leave the European Union, Johnson – until recently Mayor of London – was once favorite to take over from Cameron, who resigned in humiliation after losing the referendum.
BoJo’s decision came after Michael Gove, a close ally of Johnson, announced he would stand for Prime Minister.
Some reckoned Boris’s political career was over. But others expected that as one of the UK’s most popular politicians, he would bounce back to a Cabinet position -and Theresa May has made him Foreign Secretary.
Boris is the first Foreign Secretary to also be a US citizen. Johnson is technically an American, born in New York where his parents were there.
He announced in February last year he was renouncing his American citizenship after a dispute with the IRS which hit him with a $44,000 tax bill for selling a house in London.
But Heat Street can reveal he subsequently backtracked on his pledge.
“Boris had second thoughts and never went through with renouncing his US citizenship,” a former Mayoral colleague of Johnson’s told Heat Street. “He quietly settled the tax bill.”
“I think, it’s absolutely outrageous,” Johnson said at the time. ” I haven’t lived in the United States for, you know, well, since I was five years old.”
#Brexit .@BorisJohnson “The good news for our friends in America is that they will be at the FRONT of the queue.” pic.twitter.com/86V97oWd8O
— Arthur Angell (@ArthurAngell) June 30, 2016
Foreign Secretary Johnson visited America on several occasions while he was Mayor of London. In November 2014, he went to New York to promote his new Winston Churchill biography, and launched the book at a packed event at the Yale Club of New York City organized by the Anglosphere Society in New York.
During that visit he dined with Henry Kissinger, and met Jennifer Lawrence when they appeared together on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman.
BoJo told Heat Street at the time: “I had a good talk with Jennifer Lawrence. She is transcendental.”
Americans will be glad that the UK’s representative is not “Foreign” to them.