[4] A member of the Conservative Party, he also is a former British Army officer and United Nations commander in Bosnia,[5] commentator, author and public speaker.
[6] In November 2023, the CPS secured a conviction for a racially aggravated public order offence against Stewart and he was fined.
[12] 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.
[13][16] During his time in Northern Ireland he was the Incident Commander at the Droppin Well bombing in Ballykelly which killed seventeen people.
[26] He was promoted colonel on 31 December 1993,[27] and went on to take up the position of Chief of Policy at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe,[13] before officially retiring from the army on 1 February 1996.
[28] 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.
[31] In 2009 he condemned the system compensating injured soldiers, accusing the MOD of acting with "the speed of a striking sloth".
[34] 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.
[42] In 2013, Stewart voted against same-sex marriage and called on the then Prime Minister David Cameron to drop the proposal.
[45] Stewart has been vocal in criticising cuts to the defence budget, suggesting in March 2015, that if the Joint Chiefs of Staff were to resign over the issue it would "make a very powerful message".
[52] At the snap 2017 general election, Stewart held his seat with a vote share increased by 2%, but with a decreased majority of 15,087.
[64] In July 2021, Stewart was one of five Conservative MPs found by the Commons Select Committee on Standards to have breached the code of conduct by writing to the Lord Chief Justice to try to influence a judge not to release character statements made by ordinary members of the public – former constituents of the former Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke, who had previously been found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and sentenced to two years in prison.
[65] Stewart reportedly wrote to the judge saying Elphicke's sentence should take into account his hard work as an MP, and described his crimes as "folly".
[9][75] Stewart lives in Beckenham in London and in 1994 he married his second wife, Clare Podbielski, a Red Cross worker he met while serving in the military.