Farage said he would meet with Trump to discuss the Chagos Islands, but the meeting didn’t happen
Nigel Farage said he would speak with Donald Trump during a visit to the US President’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Friday, but that meeting did not happen.
Farage has been lobbying against the UK government’s plan to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
As reported by the Financial Times, Farage said at a ‘Save Chagos Boat Party’ that he would raise the issue with Trump over dinner on Friday evening.
However, sources who spoke to the FT indicated that Trump had not invited Farage to meet him at Mar-a-Lago. Instead, a member of the Mar-a-Lago club had invited Farage to Trump’s residence.
Farage had reportedly hoped he would be able to catch Trump for a conversation as he was set to travel to Mar-a-Lago that evening.
However, Trump later changed his itinerary and stayed in Doral, about an hour’s drive away.
Sources say the Reform UK leader and Donald Trump are no longer in regular contact. They also report that Reform has few direct links to the US administration.
Farage and other right-wing politicians are against the UK handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and leasing the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia. Britain split up the colony of Mauritius in 1965, and made the Chagos Islands part of the new colony of British Indian Ocean territory.
On 21 February, Farage tried to carry out a stunt by attempting to visit the Chagos Islands on a private jet linked to Reform UK donor Christopher Harborne. Farage claimed that the UK government had barred him from accessing the islands.
Labour agreed to hand back the Chagos Islands in October last year, after it was argued in international courts that Britain’s seizure of the territory had violated international law.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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