Boris Johnson Takes Control of Brexit as Britain’s New Prime Minister

Boris Johnson Takes Control of Brexit as Britain’s New Prime Minister
Boris Johnson speaks after being announced as Britain's next Prime Minister at The Queen Elizabeth II center in London, Britain on July 23, 2019. Toby Melville/Reuters
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LONDON—Boris Johnson took office as British prime minister on July 24 after an audience with Queen Elizabeth, a moment that put an avowed Brexiteer in control of Britain’s exit from the European Union for the first time since the shock 2016 referendum.

Johnson enters Downing Street at one of the most perilous junctures in post-World War Two British history - the United Kingdom is divided over its divorce from the EU and weakened by the three-year political crisis that has gripped it since that referendum.