By Alan Beresford

Copyright grampianonline

Sheep farmer to Conservative Rural Affairs spokesman and then chief whip in the Scottish Parliament is not a career trajectory many can boast.

The former leader of the Tory group on Moray Council had settled into a quiet life with his family on his farm just outside Buckie when a call in February 2024 from then Scottish Party leader Douglas Ross MSP asking him to take up the seat vacated by Donald Cameron. Mr Eagle had been fifth on the Conservative list for the Highlands and Islands region in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, just missing out on a seat.

He barely had time to warm his seat in Holyrood before he was promoted to Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Fishing by incoming Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay MSP.

However, this has not marked the end of the promotions for Mr Eagle, recently being unveiled as the party’s chief whip, an influential role which effectively makes him Mr Findlay’s right-hand man in parliament.. This runs alongside his existing Rural Affairs brief. He takes over the chief whip reins from Aberdeenshire West MSP Alexander Burnett.

As with the other political happenings in Mr Eagle’s life over the last 18 months, this was another bolt from the blue to add to his collection.

He said: “it was a complete surprise.

“I get on very well with Russell [Findlay] and I guess he wanted to bring something a bit fresher into that role.

“Maybe because I’d only been in a year and a half I guess I come in without any sort of background to it, I can just look at going forward. I like being on the ground, I like the whole knocking on doors thing so I guess moving into an election it seemed sensible for Russell to give me this role

“I didn’t know it was coming and at first I was a bit like ‘Oh, my word! Why me? I’ve only been there a year and a half’. I guess in politics when you get offered these opportunities you just have to take them.

“Alexander [Burnett] has done the chief whip’s job for a long time and I think with an election coming up he wanted to spend a bit more time on his business.”

Looking the job of chief whip role itself he described it rather more of a “background role” rather than one continually in the glare of publicity. One of those important but usually unsung duties is co-ordinating parliamentary business for the coming week with representatives from the other parties to ensure the smooth running of Holyrood. He is also a liaison between the party and its MSPs, councillors and HQ.

Mr Eagle continued: “Where things are going well we communicate that, making sure what Russell’s doing is communicated out to the wider MSPs.

“I guess it’s called the whip because it also comes with its challenges because where things aren’t going well and when there are problems or when MSPs don’t want to vote along what the party might suggest they do I have to go and speak to them and maybe have some stronger words in the background.

“There are times, though, when that’s OK and MSPs should be able to vote as their conscience tells them, for example assisted dying.”

Looking at his new role through the prism of the Scottish Parliament elections due next May, he continued: “I guess from a completely selfish point of view I think the sort of higher you are in the party the more ability you have to affect hopefully positive change for Moray.

“I’m very passionate about Moray, just as I was during my time as a councillor for Buckie, and I’m trying to take that more widely now to things like Dr Gray’s, the A96, you know all these big campaigns that we’ve been talking about for years. There’s going to be a little bit of bias in me to want to fight for the place where me and my family live.”

He went to reflect that while the Tories have had their own challenges, not least since their General Election defeat last summer and, while they have a “long way to go” the party are shaping “good policies” to put before the people of Scotland. Mr Eagle said he thought the SNP looked “tired after what will be nearly 20 years in power by next May, stating people were looking for an alternative they could trust. He also went on to warn about the surge of Reform.

His role as the Scottish Conservatives’ Rural Affairs spokesman has brought with it many weighty issues, particularly in the realm of fishing and farming. One of the major concerns on his desk concerns the farm tax being imposed by the Labour government on the agriculture industry. Mr Eagle said he believed the upshot of this hugely controversial measure would ultimately be accelerated rural depopulation as former family-run farms would be sold and then bought up by larger businesses. Fields formerly used to grow crops or graze livestock would then be converted to biodiversity or carbon credit projects.

The implications for nation food security, he warned, could potentially be grave.

Mr Eagle continued: “The Common Agricultural Policy came in on the back of World War II in order to prevent food insecurity in our country and make sure that we could sustain our population into the future no matter what happened.

“There was a great risk, I think, that if we do things like this [the farm tax] – and it’s not an understatement to say it could happen – you risk that again, so if there is another pandemic or a war or any major event how does Britain look after itself? It’s got to have some inbuilt protection.”

He went on to voice the hope that as the farm tax Bill made its way through the house of Lords amendments would be made to soften the impact of the legislation.

Mr Eagle is still pinching himself that he is even in parliament never mind enjoying senior roles within the party. He recently announced he will be contesting the Moray constituency seat at the 2026 elections, which he previously fought in 2021, putting in a creditable result against the incumbent Richard Lochhead of the SNP. Mr Lochhead will not be standing next May.

He said: “I was so happy just on the farm taking my kids back and forth to school!

“Seriously though, it’s a great privilege to be an MSP and it’s something I’ve always been passionate about.

“I’ve always been passionate about serving the people of Moray and the people of Buckie when I was a councillor and I want to do that again. That’s why ultimately I’ve made the decision to stand next year.

“I could never have predicted where I am in the party – to have had Douglas’s confidence to give me that phone call initially and also to have had Russell’s confidence to do these roles so quickly after having come in.

“I’m not going to take that for granted and I’m going to do everything I can to support Russell and the party.”

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