Johnson's paternal great-grandfather was Circassian-Turkish journalist Ali Kemal who was a secular Muslim. Johnson's paternal grandfather, Wilfred Johnson – Ali Kemal's son, was an RAF pilot in Coastal Command during World War II. His father's other ancestry includes English, German and French; one of his German ancestors was said to be the illegitimate daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg and thus a descendant of King George II of Great Britain. This would make him and Elizabeth II sixth cousins twice removed. Through Mary of Teck's connection to Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, they would in that case also have a closer genealogical link as fifth cousins twice removed. Johnson's mother is the granddaughter of Elias Avery Lowe, a palaeographer, who was a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US, and Pennsylvania-born Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, a translator of Thomas Mann. In reference to his varied ancestry, Johnson has described himself as a "one-man melting pot" – with a combination of Abrahamic religious great-grandparents. Johnson was given the middle name "Boris" after a Russian émigré his parents had once met. An episode of Who Do You Think You Are? explored the German origins of his middle name Pfeffel. Through this family line, Boris Johnson is a descendant in the seventh generation of Anna Catharina Bischoff, whose mummified corpse was found in 1975 and identified in 2018.
Writing for Prospect, Philip Collins suggested that Johnson and other Brexiteers in the Conservative Party were "British Gaullists" who were "drawing on a conception of the nation in which the dormant spirit of liberty is being reborn." He suggested that this was a form of nationalism, albeit not of the "chauvinistic" variety. In Politico, Michael Hirsch compared Johnson to Trump, suggesting that both were advocates of a "New Nationalism". Johnson responded that he is "not a nationalist if by that you mean I'm a xenophobe or someone who deprecates other countries and cultures".
More InfoOn 19 July, Reuters reported that Johnson, as well as his political allies, had been actively supported by the former Russian oil tycoon Alexander Temerko, who became a major donor to the Conservative Party after he fled Russia in 2004 to evade criminal charges. Temerko said he was on friendly first-name terms with Johnson. Temerko reportedly had close ties to the Russian government but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Temerko "has no connection to the Kremlin or the Russian authorities".
More InfoIn August 2018, The Daily Telegraph published a satirical article by Johnson criticising the then newly implemented Danish law against the wearing of the burqa or niqab. In it, he defended the right of women to wear whatever they chose. He agreed that the burqa is oppressive and that "it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces" and also commented that he could "find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran" and that it seemed "absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes" and that "[i]f a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber" that he "should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that [he] could talk to her properly." The Muslim Council of Britain (MCM) accused Johnson of "pandering to the far right", while Conservative peer Baroness Warsi accused him of dog-whistle politics. Several senior Conservatives, including May, called on Johnson to apologise. Others, such as MP Nadine Dorries, argued that his comments did not go far enough and that face veils should be banned. A Sky News poll found 60% thought Johnson's comments were not racist, to 33% who did; 48% thought he should not apologise, while 45% thought he should. An independent panel was set up to review Johnson's comments. In December, the panel cleared him of wrongdoing, stating that while his language could be considered "provocative", he was "respectful and tolerant" and was fully entitled to use "satire" to make his point.
More InfoStuart Wilks-Heeg, executive director of Democratic Audit, said that "Boris is politically nimble", while biographer Sonia Purnell stated that Johnson regularly changed his opinion on political issues, commenting on what she perceived to be "an ideological emptiness beneath the staunch Tory exterior". She later referred to his "opportunistic – some might say pragmatic – approach to politics". In 2014, former Mayor Ken Livingstone stated in an interview with the New Statesman that, while he had once feared Johnson as "the most hardline right-wing ideologue since Thatcher", over the course of Johnson's mayoralty he had instead concluded that he was "a fairly lazy tosser who just wants to be there" while doing very little work.
More InfoWidely known simply as "Boris", Johnson has attracted a variety of nicknames, including "BoJo", a portmanteau of his forename and surname. Biographer Sonia Purnell described his public persona as "brand Boris", noting that he developed it while at the University of Oxford. Max Hastings referred to this public image as a "façade resembling that of P. G. Wodehouse's Gussie Fink-Nottle, allied to wit, charm, brilliance and startling flashes of instability", while political scientist Andrew Crines stated that Johnson displayed "the character of a likable and trustworthy individual with strong intellectual capital". Private Eye editor Ian Hislop has defined him as "Beano Boris" due to his perceived comical nature, saying: "He's our Berlusconi ... He's the only feel-good politician we have, everyone else is too busy being responsible." To the journalist Dave Hill, Johnson was "a unique figure in British politics, an unprecedented blend of comedian, conman, faux subversive showman and populist media confection".
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