Name Marina Wheeler Role Barrister | ||
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Children Theodore Apollo Johnson, Lara Lettice Johnson, Milo Arthur Johnson, Cassia Peaches Johnson Similar People Boris Johnson, Charles Wheeler, Stanley Johnson, Jo Johnson, Charlotte Johnson Wahl | ||
Education University of Cambridge | ||
Boris Johnson's wife enters EU debate with call to curb EU laws
Marina Wheeler, QC (born 1964 in Berlin, Germany) is a British lawyer, author and columnist.
Contents
- Boris Johnsons wife enters EU debate with call to curb EU laws
- Boris Johnson to divorce but will it hit his leadership hopes ITV News
- Early life
- Career
- Family
- References
As a barrister, she specialises in public law, including human rights, and is a member of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal. The wife of UK Foreign Secretary and former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, she was appointed Queen's Counsel (as Ms Marina Wheeler) in 2016.
Boris Johnson to divorce - but will it hit his leadership hopes? | ITV News
Early life
Marina Claire Wheeler is of half English and half Indian Sikh descent, the daughter of BBC correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler and his second wife Dip Singh. Her Asian ancestry goes back to the town of Sargodha in West Punjab, modern-day Pakistan, with her maternal family migrating to India after the partition. She was educated at the European School of Brussels, and then in the early 1980s at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where she wrote for the student magazine Cantab.
At the European School, she became friendly with Boris Johnson, the journalist and politician. Her sister, Shirin Wheeler, is an EU spokeswoman.
Career
After Cambridge, Wheeler returned to Brussels and worked there for four years. In 1987 she was called to the Bar, practising from chambers in London at One Crown Office Row. In her work as a barrister, Wheeler specialises in mental health matters and discrimination claims. In January 2004 she was appointed to the B-Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown. In 2009, she joined the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal as a barrister member.
Of her legal work, Wheeler has stated:
My own experience, shared by many colleagues, is that a high proportion of discrimination cases we deal with are ill-founded. One colleague puts the figure at more than 60 per cent... Many unregulated advisors make a living bringing discrimination claims, and they do not always seem to have the best interests of the Applicant in mind.
In February 2016, she "took silk" as a QC.
Family
In 1993, Wheeler married her childhood friend, Boris Johnson, after they met again in Brussels, where he was covering the European Parliament for The Daily Telegraph. Together they have four children, Lara Lettice, Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches and Theodore Apollo, and live in Islington.