Nigel Farage has admitted breaching parliamentary rules by failing to register a trip to Florida to headline a fundraising event for Donald Trump. The Reform UK leader was the main speaker at the $500-a-head Republican party dinner in Tallahassee in March.
Guests could pay $25,000 (£18,445) for a VIP ticket, which included a photograph with the Clacton MP, according to promotional material. Farage said on Sunday that he had failed to declare the trip in parliamentary transparency logs due to an error by his office.
In a statement, the MP said he had emailed details of the trip to his office but added: “Unfortunately, these submissions were not added to the register. This was an error … A correction to the record will be made tomorrow along with an apology to the registrar.”
According to the parliamentary code of conduct, MPs must register any visits outside the UK costing more than £300 unless wholly paid by the MP or public funds. They must also report any fees or payments in kind within 28 days. Farage said the trip was “remunerated in three separate instalments over the course of two months” but did not say who paid for it, adding that he paid for travel himself.
Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said: “Nigel Farage needs to come clean on who’s bankrolling his trips abroad to badmouth Britain.” Anna Turley MP, the Labour party chair, said Farage had “failed to disclose who funded this US trip, refused to answer questions about his tax affairs, and changed his story about where he lives.”
