British MP denies £100K SL holiday claim

Rejecting allegations levelled against him, British MP Ian Paisley said he did not declare £100,000 in hospitality from the Sri Lankan Government, the BBC reported yesterday.

The Daily Telegraph had earlier reported that the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP and his family took two all-expenses-paid holidays to Sri Lanka in 2013. 

The report said he recently met Sri Lankan officials to discuss the possibility of post-Brexit trade deals with Sri Lanka. 

 But the MP said the report was “devoid of fact or logic” and “defamatory.”

In response to the Sri Lankan holiday claims, a DUP spokesman said: “Ian Paisley MP will rightly refer himself to the [Parliamentary] Commissioner for Standards. We await the outcome of that investigation.”

The newspaper reported that the Paisely family had flown business-class to Sri Lanka and had stayed in luxurious hotels.

It estimated the total worth of the trips at about £100,000 and claimed the cost and expenses were paid for by the Sri Lankan Government.

Paisley this week tweeted a picture of himself meeting the Sri Lankan High Commissioner Amari Wijewardene “to discuss NI-Sri Lanka trade deal after Brexit.”

Two days later he tweeted a picture of himself with International Trade Secretary Liam Fox “discussing our trade agreements post-Brexit.”

The 50-year-old MP is the son of the late Ian Paisley, founder and former leader of the DUP, now the largest political party in Northern Ireland.