Marina Wheeler, barrister and ex-wife of former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has announced that she is switching parties. According to The BBC, the employment lawyer will be working with the Labour Party, as an advisor to help combat workplace harassment against women. She will be advising shadow attorney general of England and Wales Emily Thornberry to help implement these measures. This announcement coincides with the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, which began on Sunday and is expected to wrap up on Wednesday. Thornberry will be announcing these plans on Tuesday. According to The Independent, Wheeler was originally expected to attend the party conference, but was unable to due to ‘work commitments.’
Wheeler was Johnson’s second wife, with the future Prime Minister being previously married to Tatler cover girl Allegra Mostyn-Owen. She met Johnson while they were both attending The European School in Brussels together. The two would eventually marry in 1993 and remained together during his various political positions from MP of Henley to Foreign Secretary. The couple share four children together. In 2018, Johnson and Wheeler announced their separation, before eventually finalising their divorce in 2020, one year after the former became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. That same year, Wheeler published a family memoir to much acclaim, The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab, focusing on the life of her mother. Johnson has been married to his current partner Carrie Symonds since 2021, whom he shares three children with.
The Prime Minister, who stepped down as Tory leader yesterday, is celebrating his marriage at the Buckinghamshire residence later this month
In a press statement delivered to the BBC and other media outlets, Wheeler commented on her forthcoming role within the Labour Party. ‘Women in the workplace too often suffer sexual harassment and assault and they pay a heavy price for speaking out. Knowing this, and to keep their jobs, they suffer in silence.’ She continued ‘having spent over two decades litigating employment disputes, I am delighted to be working with Emily Thornberry to help formulate solutions – including law reform where necessary – to encourage women to come forward’.
