Labour presses Farage on flight costs
Labour has challenged Nigel Farage’s claim that a return trip to the Maldives on a private jet linked to billionaire donor Christopher Harborne cost as little as £25,000.
Farage first logged the two-day journey at £12,500 in the register of interests, saying the cost was covered by Harborne, a Thailand-based Reform megadonor. He later revised the figure to £25,000 in the most recent update.
The Guardian previously reported that ownership of the aircraft was linked to Harborne, who has donated more than £12m to Reform. The plane was used as Farage tried to reach the Chagos Islands, although the trip did not end with him getting there because he did not have permission.
In a letter sent on Thursday, Labour chair Anna Turley said a charter of a comparable private jet would normally cost far more than the amount Farage declared.
“According to publicly available flight logs, this was an 11,000-mile round trip, lasting just over 23 hours, using a model of plane that is currently advertised on multiple private jet websites as costing at least $11,500 (£8,500) per hour to charter,” she wrote.
Turley added that, based on the Guardian’s reporting on 8 March, the aircraft and its sister jet appeared to be operated by one of Harborne’s companies.
“It appears that Mr Harborne put this luxury private jet at your personal disposal for a period of two-and-a-half days, including 23 hours of flying time and the costs of its crew, fuel, refreshments and other operating costs – and yet your valuation of that donation at £12,500, which you later amended to £25,000, bears no relation to the market rate for any other provider of the equivalent services available in the private jet charter industry,” she said.
She asked Farage to explain how he had calculated the value of the flight to the Maldives, and pointed to Electoral Commission guidance saying that if goods or services are received free of charge, they must be valued at a comparable market rate and assessed honestly and reasonably.
Farage and Reform did not respond to requests for comment.
The Reform UK leader has previously described the trip as a “humanitarian mission”, saying he wanted to draw attention to the situation facing Chagossians, whose families were removed from the islands in the 1960s and are seeking to return.
He has also criticised the UK government’s plan to hand sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius while continuing to lease back the military base there, arguing the move would conflict with international law.
Harborne is also linked to another aircraft that transported a separate group of Chagossian campaigners to Sri Lanka before they travelled by boat toward the archipelago.
The cryptocurrency and aviation investor, who is based in Thailand, has previously not answered questions about whether he owns the planes used for the trip.
