Labour challenges Farage over cost of private jet trip to Maldives | Nigel Farage
Labor has questioned Nigel Farage’s claim that the Reform leader’s return trip to the Maldives on a private jet linked to a billionaire donor cost as little as £25,000 as he tried to reach the Chagos Islands.
Farage first noted the cost of his two-day trip to the Maldives was £12,500, funded by Thailand-based Reform mega-donor Christopher Harborne, before increasing that figure to £25,000 in the latest filing of interest.
The Guardian reported that ownership of the private jet was linked to Harborne, who donated more than £12 million to the party.
But Labor Party leader Anna Turley wrote to Farage on Thursday arguing that renting a similarly sized private jet would cost many times more than the announced amount.
“According to publicly available flight records, this was an 11,000-mile round trip that took just over 23 hours, using an aircraft model that is currently advertised on multiple private jet websites as costing at least $11,500 (£8,500) per hour to charter,” he said.
“According to your statement, not only did Mr Harborne pay for this flight, but – based on the Guardian report of 8 March – it is reasonable to assume that the aircraft in question and its sister aircraft were operated by one of Mr Harborne’s companies…
“It appears that Mr Harborne has made this luxury private jet available for your personal use for a period of two and a half days, including 23 hours of flying time and crew costs, fuel, refreshments and other operating costs – but your donation valuation of £12,500, which you subsequently amended to £25,000, has no relationship to the market rate of any other provider of equivalent services available in the private jet charter industry.”
He asked Farage to explain how he assessed the cost of the flight to the Maldives, which did not result in him reaching the Chagos Islands because he did not have permission.
Turley emphasized the Electoral Commission’s guidance that: “If you receive goods or services free of charge… you must ensure that their value is determined by a comparable market price… The guiding principle is that in all cases you must make an honest and reasonable assessment of the value of the goods or services you receive.”
Farage and Reform did not respond to requests for comment. The Reform UK leader has previously described the visit as a “humanitarian mission” and said he was making the trip to highlight the plight of Chagossians whose families were removed from the islands in the 1960s and want to return.
He also opposes the UK government’s decision to continue leasing the base from Mauritius while handing over sovereignty of the islands to comply with international law.
As well as being linked to the plane that flew Farage to the Maldives, Harborne is also linked to another plane that flew another group of Chagossian campaigners to Sri Lanka before heading to the archipelago by boat.
The Thailand-based cryptocurrency and aviation investor did not previously respond to requests for comment on whether it owned the planes that facilitated the trip.
