Labour challenges Farage over cost of private jet trip to Maldives

Labour has queried Nigel Farage’s claim that a return trip to the Maldives on a private jet linked to a billionaire donor cost as little as £25,000 as the Reform leader attempted to reach the Chagos Islands.

Farage initially recorded his two-day trip to the Maldives as costing £12,500 funded by Thailand-based Reform megadonor Christopher Harborne, before upgrading this to £25,000 in the latest register of interests.

The Guardian reported that ownership of the private jet was linked to Harborne, who has given the party more than £12m.

However, Anna Turley, the chair of the Labour party, wrote to Farage on Thursday arguing that chartering a private jet of a similar size would cost many times more than the sum 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 said.

“Not only did Mr Harborne pay for the costs of this flight, according to your declaration, it is reasonable to assume – based on the Guardian’s reporting on 8 March – that the plane in question and its sister plane are operated by one of Mr 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 asked Farage to clarify how he came about valuing the cost of the flight to the Maldives, which did not end in him reaching the Chagos Islands, as he did not have permission.

Turley highlighted Electoral Commission guidelines that state: “If you receive goods or services free of charge … you must ensure these are valued at a comparable market rate … The guiding principle is that, in all cases, you should make an honest and reasonable assessment of the value of the goods or services you are receiving.”

Farage and Reform did not reply to requests for comment. Previously, the Reform UK leader has described the visit as a “humanitarian mission”, saying he undertook the trip to highlight the plight of the Chagossians, whose families were removed from the islands in the 1960s and are seeking to return.

He also opposes the UK government’s decision to hand sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius to comply with international law while continuing to lease the base from them.

As well as being linked to the plane that flew Farage to the Maldives, Harborne is linked to another plane that flew another group of Chagossian campaigners to Sri Lanka before they set out for the archipelago by boat.

The Thailand-based cryptocurrency and aviation investor has previously not replied to requests for comment about whether he owns the planes that facilitated the trip.