Boris Johnson Says It’s the U.K.’s ‘Saddest Day’
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said today is “our country’s saddest day.”
In a statement, Johnson said there is an ache in everyone’s hearts over the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, “far more intense, perhaps, than we expected.”
“She seems so timeless and so wonderful that I am afraid we had to come to believe, like children, that she would just go on and on,” he said.
As the Commonwealth grieves, Johnson, who recently resigned as Prime Minister, said his thoughts are with the Royal Family.
Johnson said people around the world are facing the reality that the Queen is really gone.
“It is only really now that we grasp how much she meant for us, how much she did for us, how much she loved us,” Johnson said.
“We think of her deep wisdom, and historic understanding, and her seemingly inexhaustible but understated sense of duty,” he said. “Relentless though her diary must have felt, she never once let it show, and to tens of thousands of events – great and small – she brought her smile and her warmth and her gentle humour – and for an unrivalled 70 years she spread that magic around her Kingdom.”
Johnson said the Queen had a “unique and simple power to make us happy” and noted her ability to modernize the monarchy and produce heirs that will honor her legacy.
He said the country will utter words it has not heard in more than seven decades: “God save the King.”
