On the night Barack Obama was elected as US president, Boris Johnson reportedly said he “wished he was black,” according to British-Ghanian journalist Afua Hirsch. Hirsch claimed Mr Johnson had demanded to know her origin at a party celebrating Obama’s victory in 2008. Mr Johnson’s ex-wife Marina Wheeler stated that she could not recall the incident but expressed worry when informed of it. Since getting divorced from Mr Johnson in 2020 after separating in 2018, Wheeler has felt more liberated. She was appointed Labour’s “whistleblowing tsar” in October to oversee initiatives to enhance women’s protection and employment rights against workplace harassment, abuse, and sexual assault.
