The University of Dallas is proud to welcome former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to campus on Friday, March 27 at 6:30 p.m. The Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson was the leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary, and Lord Mayor of London.
The former Prime Minister will be hosted by UD Young Americans for Freedom, and he will be giving a talk titled “The Race to Save the West.”
Born in New York and raised in England, Boris Johnson studied classics at Oxford and nurtured an early career in political journalism. He worked for various publications, including The Daily Telegraph and The Times. His journey into Parliament began in 1997 when he ran as a conservative candidate for the first time and lost to his opponent. However he made a comeback, in 2001, and won a seat in Parliament.
In 2008, Johnson ran on issues of crime and transportation, won, and was elected Mayor of London (he was later reelected in 2012). He reentered Parliament in 2015 and became Prime Minister in 2019.
He appeared regularly on British television, which allowed him to become a widely recognized politician. Throughout his political career, he wrote various books including “Seventy-Two Virgins,” a political comedy novel published in 2004, and “The Churchill Factor,” a biography of Winston Churchill published in 2014.
Johnson is best known for finalizing Brexit, Britain’s exit from the European Union. The primary decision to leave was made after a 2016 referendum where 52% of voters opted to leave the European Union. Britain officially left the European Union in January of 2020.
Junior politics major Liam Ritter, Chair of UD Young Americans for Freedom, explained why they chose to invite Boris Johnson: “He is uniquely equipped to talk about Western Civilization. He’s educated in the classics, he went to Oxford, he served as Prime Minister of one of the greatest Western nations in world history, so I really can’t think of anyone more qualified to talk about the fate of the West than him.”
One of the main hurdles to hosting the former Prime Minister was finances, but the school and YAF overcame that. When asked how he got Boris Johnson to come to UD, Ritter said: “We had generous friends of the chapter who wanted to see the lecture happen and we were persistent.”
Sophomore politics major James Slack, Treasurer for YAF, voiced excitement about the event. He said, “I am so grateful that we are able to host such an educated and prominent speaker, especially one of Boris Johnson’s caliber. Having any head of state visit us is incredible, but I’m especially looking forward to the way he will connect with UD as a classically educated politician–we don’t see many of those in the U.S.”