INSTANTLY recognizable with his mop of blonde hair, Boris Johnson’s bumbling but breezy attitude earned him a string of improbable political victories, including Brexit, but has enraged and offended in equal measure.

The Conservative MP is considered the favorite among the 11 candidates vying to replace the outgoing Theresa May as leader of the governing party, and therefore prime minister, by the end of July. Johnson, 54, the bookmakers’ favorite to succeed May, has proved his pedigree as a winner by being elected twice as mayor of London.

But he has to attend court over allegations that he knowingly lied during the Brexit referendum campaign, judge Margot Coleman said Wednesday, without specifying the date.

Johnson’s decision to back the campaign to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016 was viewed as a game changer in the push for Brexit.

It lost him many friends and he drew criticism for making misleading claims during the campaign.

However, it made him a strong favorite for prime minister when the post opened up in the chaos after the referendum — only to lose out when his main backer turned against him.

His subsequent appointment as foreign secretary was a surprise, given his inclination for acting the clown — blundering into a series of diplomatic rows with his seemingly off-the-cuff remarks.

But when he quit after two years in protest at plans to retain close ties with the EU after Brexit, many Conservative activists hailed his decision and he once again moved center stage.

Coleman said Johnson will need to answer questions about his possible misconduct in public office, when he claimed Britain contributed 350 million pounds (US$442 million) to the EU each week.

The exact amount of Britain’s net and gross EU contributions was one of the biggest issues during the 2016 referendum campaign.

Johnson was a key figure in the “leave” campaign advocating a break with the EU. The campaign emblazoned a bus with a promise that voting for Brexit would mean that instead of sending substantial money to the EU, the cash could be used to fund Britain’s National Health Service.

Britain’s statistics regulator has said Johnson’s claim about the 350 million pounds was misleading and a “gross misuse of official statistics.”

Lawyers representing Marcus Ball, an activist pursuing a private prosecution of Johnson, had asked Westminster Magistrates’ Court to summon the politician. Ball and his legal team assert that Johnson deliberately misled the public during the referendum and then in the general election of 2017.

The maximum penalty for misconduct in public office is life imprisonment.

Johnson was not present at the hearing, but his lawyer Adrian Darbishire said the pro-Brexit figurehead staunchly denied acting in an improper or dishonest manner.

One of a rare-breed of politicians known simply by his first name, “Boris” was born in New York in 1964 as Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson into a competitive, high-achieving family. He is a direct descendant of King George II.

Johnson renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2016 amid a taxes crackdown by the Internal Revenue Service on the global earnings of dual nationals. He last lived in the United States as a 5-year-old.

His sister Rachel, a journalist and writer who later went on to stand as a candidate for anti-Brexit party Change U.K., 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 at the elite Eton School and read classics at Oxford University, where he was in the same classes as former British Prime Minister David Cameron and he was a member of the Bullingdon Club, an all-male dining society known for rowdy behavior.

He later became a journalist and was initially sacked from The Times for fabricating quotes. He then worked for The Daily Telegraph and as editor of Spectator magazine, and wrote several history books.

He made a name for himself as the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent mocking the EU’s institutions and rules.

He was among the first to peddle “Euro-myths” about bans on bendy bananas and square strawberries, a style of reporting about the bloc that became a staple of the British press.

Johnson became MP for the then-opposition Conservatives in 2001 and was later appointed as the party’s arts spokesman, before being sacked over accusations of lying about an alleged extra-marital affair.

However, the persona he cultivated as the plucky British amateur fighting a political machine remained popular with the public, winning him the London mayoral elections in 2008 and 2012.

His role overseeing the 2012 Olympic Games — and memorably getting stuck on a zip-wire while celebrating Team GB’s first gold medal — gained him a global profile.

Critics say he left no lasting legacy beyond some new cycling infrastructure, but Johnson’s brand of liberal conservatism proved appealing to urban voters in a way few of his party colleagues could match.

The year before he quit as mayor, Johnson returned to the House of Commons as MP for an area west of London.

Among his promises was to oppose the expansion of London’s Heathrow airport, although he was not present for a key vote on the project after hastily arranging a trip to Afghanistan in his role as foreign minister last year.

His appointment as Britain’s top diplomat in 2016 was viewed as a canny move by Prime Minister May to keep him from building up a domestic power base, but risked being deeply awkward.

He once wrote about Africans as “flag-waving piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles,” and made a racially charged quip about former U.S. President Barack Obama.

In office he made some major errors, notably in suggesting that a British-Iranian woman held in Tehran on sedition charges may have been training journalists — something her family strongly denies, and fears jeopardized her case.

The Chatham House think-tank concluded that he was Britain’s “least successful” foreign minister since World War II, noting: “where gravitas and grasp of detail were needed Johnson supplied bon mots.”

Nor did he stay out of domestic politics — Johnson repeatedly challenged May’s Brexit strategy through newspaper articles. When he finally quit as foreign secretary, she seemed relieved.

But he stayed in the headlines, sparking a national debate in August 2018 with an article saying that Muslim women who wore the face veil looked like “letter-boxes” or “bank robbers.”

His supporters suggested he was merely raising the issue of the compatibility of face veils in liberal societies, but critics suspected it was a cynical move to cement his populist credentials.

Johnson’s political shadow grew increasingly large as May’s authority weakened, tidying up his trademark locks, losing weight and going public with his new girlfriend, ex-Tory spin doctor Carrie Symonds, in apparent preparation for an upcoming contest.

There are also reports that Johnson is seeking a speedy divorce from his second wife Marina Wheeler after 25 years so he can move into Downing Street with Symonds.

Johnson once told USA Today in an interview that the chance of him becoming prime minister was about as likely as finding Elvis on Mars or being reincarnated as an olive.

“Boris Johnson is a friend of mine. He has been very, very nice to me, very supportive,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in July last year after Johnson resigned as May’s foreign secretary over her handling of Britain’s attempt to leave the European Union.

Like Trump, Johnson appears to enjoy the limelight and attracts controversy. He was once forced into an apology to the nation of Papua New Guinea for comparing infighting in his Conservative Party to “Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing.”

Experts say that whoever ends up as Britain’s next leader won’t dramatically rewrite one of the closest diplomatic, economic and military alliances in history: The “special relationship” between the United States and Britain, a phrase and diplomatic modus operandi coined by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1946.

Richard Whitman, a professor of politics at the University of Kent, said the “chemistry between May and Trump was awkward.” But he said Johnson-Trump would be different, calling it a “clash for the title of the greatest showman.”

(SD-Agencies)