Johnson says Elizabeth II’s “indomitable spirit” “created the modern constitutional monarchy.”

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has praised this Friday the figure of Elizabeth II and said that “her indomitable spirit created the modern constitutional monarchy”, as part of the commemoration events taking place in the House of Commons after the death on Thursday of the monarch at the age of 96.

Johnson has stressed that during their last meeting on Tuesday at Balmoral Palace the queen “was as radiant, knowledgeable about politics and fascinated by politics as you can remember” and added that “she was as wise in her advice as anyone I know, if not wiser,” as reported by the British television network BBC.

“That drive to fulfill her task carried her through seven decades (of reign) until that moment at Balmoral just three days ago, when she dismissed her 14th prime minister and received her 15th,” he has said, while stressing that he “will regard it as her greatest achievement that her son, Charles III, should continue her extraordinary standards of duty and service.”

“Millions of us are trying to understand why we feel this deep, personal, almost familial sense of loss. Perhaps it is partly because he has always been there, a human landmark in British life. We are beginning to come to terms with his death and to understand the full magnitude of what he did for all of us,” he has said.

In this sense, he has asked “to think about what was asked of that 25-year-old woman so many years ago: to be a person who was so trusted that her image is on all our coins, on all our stamps, to be the person in whose name justice is dispensed in this country, by whom all laws are passed and to whom all ministers swear allegiance and all members of the Armed Forces must lay down their lives if necessary.”

“Think of what we asked of him at that time. Not just to be the living embodiment in her DNA of the history and continuity of her country’s unity, but to be the figurehead of our whole system, the pillar of a huge arch of the British state. It is a role that only she could fulfill,” he reiterated.