"Wearing a striped polo shirt and sunglasses around his neck, Farage said: The British government are applying pressure on the president and the government of the Maldives to do everything within their power to stop me getting on that boat and going to the Chagos Islands. Now if I was an Isis fighter crossing the Channel to Dover, they wouldn't give a damn. No, they'd put me in a hotel, they'd give me three meals a day."
"However, it is understood that the UK government was not given advance notice of Farage's intention to travel to the islands and did not know he was in the Maldives prior to his comments on Saturday. Farage reportedly travelled by private jet to the Maldives where he spent just over a day before heading back to the UK for the Gorton and Denton byelection in Greater Manchester on Thursday."
"Nigel Farage could have spent all weekend campaigning in the byelection in Manchester. Instead he flew 5,000 miles to the Maldives on a $60m private jet, had a moan at the British government, and flew straight back again. Twenty-three hours in the air to stand on a beach, while his candidate in Gorton and Denton has had to make do with the endorsement of Tommy Robinson instead."
Nigel Farage claimed the British government stopped him travelling to the Chagos Islands while he was in the Maldives to join a delegation bringing aid to four Chagossians seeking to establish a settlement as a protest against plans to transfer control to Mauritius. He posted a video alleging the government pressed the Maldives to prevent him boarding a boat to the islands and contrasted his treatment with that of illegal migrants. The government did not have advance notice of his trip and was unaware he was in the Maldives. Farage reportedly flew by private jet, spent just over a day, and returned to the UK for a byelection campaign. A Labour source criticised the trip as unnecessary and wasteful.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]