Nigel Farage has been accused of vastly under-declaring the value of a private jet loan from his billionaire crypto backer Christopher Harborne, with the declared figure potentially falling hundreds of thousands of pounds short of the true market rate.
Private jet donation under scrutiny
Labour Party chair Anna Turley has written to the Reform UK leader demanding an explanation after he initially declared the gift of the private jet as £12,500 before amending it to £25,000. The flight, which took Farage to Mauritius as part of a failed attempt to visit the Chagos Islands, involved 23 hours of flying time with the aircraft at his disposal for two and a half days.
Turley has calculated that the commercial market rate for private jet hire stands at $11,500 (£8,575) per hour. On that basis, she argues the true value of the donation could fall anywhere between $250,000 (£186,411) and $700,000 (£521,951). “Your valuation of that donation at £12,500 – 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,” Turley wrote. She warned that if Farage fails to provide a full and accurate account, she will raise the matter with the parliamentary authorities.
Farage has defended the trip, saying he flew to the Maldives to join a delegation bringing humanitarian aid to Chagossians who are trying to establish a settlement on one of the outer islands. He accused the British government of preventing him from reaching the Chagos Islands and has been vocal in opposing Sir Keir Starmer’s deal to transfer sovereignty of the territory to Mauritius.
£5m gift sparks watchdog inquiry
The row over the jet follows a separate controversy involving a £5m donation from Harborne to Farage, which the Clacton MP initially failed to declare. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has opened an investigation into whether Farage breached Commons rules by not registering the gift after his election in 2024.
Farage has said the money was a personal gift he received before deciding to stand for Parliament, intended to cover his private security for the rest of his life. He later told the Sun it was a “reward for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years”. The Conservatives referred the matter to the watchdog, with Labour’s Anna Turley accusing Farage of “evading reasonable scrutiny” and “running from scrutiny”.
Questions over the gift intensified after it emerged that Farage bought a £1.4m house in Surrey with cash in May 2024, shortly after receiving the £5m from Harborne. Reform UK has stated that the property was funded by Farage’s fee from appearing on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and that the purchase process began before the gift was received. However, an analysis by the Financial Times of company accounts for Farage’s media firm, Thorn in the Side Ltd, has raised doubts, suggesting the money was not withdrawn from the firm at the time of the house purchase.
Christopher Harborne: the billionaire backer
Christopher Harborne is a British-Thai billionaire technology investor based in Thailand, where he holds citizenship under the name Chakrit Sakunkrit. An early investor in Bitcoin and Ethereum, he owns approximately 12% of Tether Limited and has an estimated net worth of £18.2bn, placing him as the sixth-richest UK billionaire and the richest British-born person on the Sunday Times Rich List.
Harborne’s donations to Farage and Reform UK have drawn particular controversy. Last August he gave the party £9m – the largest single donation from a living person in British political history – and he donated a further £3m in March this year. His total contributions to Reform UK now exceed £25m. He has also donated £1m to Boris Johnson’s private office in November 2022. Harborne’s business interests include Sherriff Global Group, which operates private planes, AML Global, an aviation fuel company, and a stake in defence tech firm Qinetiq.
The scale of these donations has raised concerns about the influence of a small number of wealthy individuals on the party’s finances. In March 2026 the UK government banned crypto donations to political parties amid fears of foreign interference. Separately, questions have been raised about helicopter travel used by Farage, with Reform UK stating the flights were paid for at commercial rates. Farage’s personal service company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, has reportedly failed to file confirmation statements and verify his identity, putting it in breach of UK company law. Harborne himself has previously sued the Wall Street Journal for defamation over reporting related to his cryptocurrency dealings.
