Bob Stewart (politician)

Colonel Robert Alexander Stewart (born 7 July 1949) is a British politician and former soldier.

Stewart was born on 7 July 1949 to a father serving in the military.

He was privately educated at Chigwell School, followed by the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst near Camberley in Surrey.

He spent part of his childhood in Cyprus.

Stewart was accepted for officer training at the age of seventeen, and after two years of training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, was commissioned into the Cheshire Regiment as a second lieutenant on 25 July 1969.

His service number was 487588.

He was promoted to lieutenant on 25 January 1971.

In 1974 he undertook an in-service Bachelor's degree in International Politics at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, graduating with first class honours.

He was promoted captain on 25 July 1975.

From 1977 Stewart served in Northern Ireland both as intelligence officer and, after attending Staff College, Camberley and promotion to major on 30 September 1981, company commander of A Company 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment, with an intermediate period spent at Sandhurst as an instructor.

During his time in Northern Ireland he was the Incident Commander at the Droppin Well bombing in Ballykelly which killed seventeen people.

Stewart heard the explosion and arrived at the scene two or three minutes later.

Six of the dead soldiers were from his company, including his clerk and storeman.

He received a personal commendation from the general commanding in Northern Ireland for his actions on the day.

He was promoted lieutenant colonel on 31 December 1987, and served as a military attaché to the NATO military committee in Brussels.

In March 1991 he assumed command of the 1st Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, and as commanding officer returned to Northern Ireland for a further two operational tours and then became the first British Commander of United Nations forces in Bosnia from September 1992 to May 1993.

It was as commanding officer in Bosnia, as part of Operation Grapple, that he earned the nickname "Bosnia Bob" and became something of a media personality.

During his time in Bosnia he discovered the Ahmići massacre in which 103 people had been killed.

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 12 June 1993 on his return to the United Kingdom.

He was promoted colonel on 31 December 1993, and went on to take up the position of Chief of Policy at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, before officially retiring from the army on 1 February 1996.

In 1997 Stewart took three weeks' leave from the public relations company Hill & Knowlton to help his friend Martin Bell who was standing for Parliament in Tatton as an Independent candidate.

Stewart was alongside Bell when they were confronted by the sitting Conservative Member of Parliament for the constituency, Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine on Knutsford Heath.

Bell, who was opposing Hamilton as a result of accusations that Hamilton had accepted money for promoting causes in Parliament, gave Stewart the credit for defining his criticism of Hamilton as having already admitted to "conduct unbecoming".

Since leaving the army Stewart has become a well-known commentator upon military and political affairs, frequently commenting upon the defence policy of the British Government and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He won 57.9% of the vote, a decrease of 1.8%, and won a majority of 17,784, an increase from 8,401 at the 2005 general election.

In 2009 he condemned the system compensating injured soldiers, accusing the MOD of acting with "the speed of a striking sloth".

He also accused the government of repeatedly refusing the requests of army commanders for more troops and more helicopters in Afghanistan.

On 28 July 2009, it was revealed that Stewart had been approved to put himself forward for selection to constituency associations as a PPC for the Conservative Party.

As the former commander of the Cheshire Regiment he was linked to the safe Conservative East Cheshire seats of Macclesfield and Congleton, however the final shortlists for Macclesfield and for Congleton from Conservative Central Office did not contain his name.

In summer 2009 he was shortlisted for Beckenham, one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, and on 6 December it was announced that he had been selected as Conservative candidate there, winning an overall majority on the second ballot.

He has been member of Parliament (MP) for Beckenham since 2010.

A former member of the Conservative Party, he also is a former British Army officer and United Nations commander in Bosnia, commentator, author and public speaker.

In November 2023, the CPS secured a conviction for a racially aggravated public order offence against Stewart and he was fined.

However, in February 2024, the conviction was quashed by Southwark Crown Court.

At the 2010 general election, Stewart was elected as the new MP for Beckenham.

In 2013, Stewart voted against same-sex marriage and called on the then Prime Minister David Cameron to drop the proposal.

In 2017 Stewart spoke of using and authorising now forbidden deep-interrogation techniques during his time in Northern Ireland.

Stewart served in the Ministry of Defence, and was second-in-command of an infantry battalion.

Five years later in May 2018 he apologised unreservedly in the House of Commons chamber for voting against same-sex marriage, after he had seen "the joy" it had brought to the lives of same-sex couples.

In 2019, he voted to extend same-sex marriage to couples in Northern Ireland.