Angus Brendan MacNeil

Angus MacNeil is a former student reporter for the Gaelic section of BBC Radio Scotland and civil engineer for Morrison Construction. Although he was defeated by the Labour candidate David Stewart in the 2001 election, Angus MacNeil was successfully elected in 2005 for Na h-Eileanan an Iar. MacNeil rose to some prominence after acting as a whistleblower in the Cash for Peerages scandal in 2006, in which the Labour party was accused of accepting donations in exchange for life peerages under then-prime minister Tony Blair. The involvement of uncovering the scandal earned MacNeil the award of Best Scot at Westminster in the Scottish Politician of the Year Awards. In 2015, MacNeil was appointed chair of the energy and climate change select committee. A year later, he was elected chair of the international trade select committee. His stated aims in parliament range from the improvement of Scotland’s mobile connectivity to reforming Universal Credit. He is a supporter both of Britain’s membership of the EU and of Scottish independence. MacNeil more than doubled his majority in the 2019 general election on a 68% turnout of the Western Isles’ 20,000-sized electorate, the smallest in the country.