FACT CHECK: Was Boris Johnson Heckled While Vacationing In Greece?

Elias AtienzaAugust 18, 2022

An image shared on Facebook claims outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was heckled while shopping at a grocery store in Greece.

Verdict: Misleading

There is no evidence of Johnson being heckled in Greece. The original video does not show anyone heckling Johnson.

Fact Check:

Johnson resigned as Conservative Party leader on July 7 following “months of ethics scandals and a party revolt,” but will stay on as prime minister until the party chooses a new leader, according to ABC News. The new prime minister will be announced by Sept. 5, following the final vote by Conservative Party members, The Guardian reported.

An image shared on Facebook claims Johnson was recently heckled while vacationing in Greece. It shows a screenshot of a tweet with pictures of Johnson in a supermarket. “Hearing that Johnson is getting booed and heckled by British holidaymakers on his Greek trip has cheered me up no end,” reads the tweet’s caption. “It will not get shown in the UK of course but Italian TV just now had a British man shouting, ‘Get back to work you fat ponce.’”

However, there is no evidence such an incident occurred. Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact found the images shared in the tweet are from a video that was posted on YouTube in August. While the full video features a woman filming Johnson, she does not heckle him. At no point in the video does a man shouts “Get back to work you fat ponce.” (RELATED: Does This Video Show Boris Johnson Giving Journalists Tea After Recovering From COVID-19?)

[embedded content]Check Your Fact could not find any credible news reports about Johnson being heckled in Greece. The Independent reported on Johnson’s appearance in the country but makes no mention of any heckling incident. In addition, a Greek City Times article about the video makes no mention of the purported situation.

BBC News reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh called the claim “bogus” on Twitter.

A completely bogus claim about Boris Johnson with 10,000 retweets and 48,000 likes. The video of the incident can be easily found on YouTube, and features no British man shouting at Mr Johnson. pic.twitter.com/BswjpJgdwp

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) August 15, 2022

“A completely bogus claim about Boris Johnson with 10,000 retweets and 48,000 likes. The video of the incident can be easily found on YouTube, and features no British man shouting at Mr Johnson,” Sardarizadeh tweeted.

The original claim likely came from a Twitter account that has been known to spread false information in the past, according to Full Fact. Pagella, an Italian fact-checking entity, told Full Fact it had found no evidence that any video of Johnson being heckled was shown on Italian television.