George Eustice

Born in Penzance, George Eustice began his political career standing unsuccessfully at the 1999 European Parliament Elections as a UKIP candidate for the South West of England. The following year, he became the campaign director for the “No” campaign group, opposing the potential adoption of the Euro. In 2005, Eustice served as head of press under Michael Howard’s leadership of the Conservative Party during the general election, later becoming part of David Cameron’s leadership campaign team and serving as his press secretary between 2005 and 2008. Following this, he worked for two years at Portland Communications. He won his seat as an MP defeating the Liberal Democrats by just 66 votes. Eustice subsequently joined the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and later the Privacy and Injunctions Joint Committee. He was a leading figure in the successful “No to AV” referendum campaign in 2011, and was co-founder of the Fresh Start Group calling for reform to the EU. In 2013, Eustice joined David Cameron’s Policy Board and later that year became a parliamentary under-secretary at Defra. In 2014, he led the Conservative Party opposition to the “pasty tax”, triggering a government U-turn on the policy. Following the 2015 general election, Eustice became agriculture minister.He was one of two Conservative environment ministers accused of having conflicts of interest interfering with developing plans to replace EU farming support systems. This is because he has a family business which received relevant subsidies. In February 2019, he resigned over Theresa May’s handling of Brexit. He returned to the role in July 2019, when he was re-appointed by the new PM, Boris Johnson. In 2020, he became secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs which he labelled his “dream job”. In this role, he refused to guarantee a ban on chlorinated chicken in US-UK trade talks post-Brexit.