Brexiteer Andy Wigmore was among British tourists who fled Switzerland to avoid 10-day quarantine

A top Brexiteer and former diplomat is among hundreds of Brits who fled Switzerland to avoid a pre-Christmas quarantine. 

Andy Wigmore, a spokesman for Leave.EU campaign co-founder Arron Banks, was holidaying at the Wengen ski resort when he received a message from Swiss authorities informing him of the mandatory quarantine coming into effect on December 22. 

Wigmore, 54, and his family fled to France that day, reaching the border 20 minutes before the quarantine began.

‘We were like the Von Trapp family from The Sound of Music, we made it over the mountains to freedom!,’ he told MailOnline. 

‘There were police stopping everyone and asking them if they were British.

‘We were among a number of Brits who made it out.’ 

Wigmore and his family caught a train to Paris and arrived in London on December 23 via Eurostar. 

Top Brexiteer and former diplomat Andy Wigmore is among hundreds of Brits who fled Switzerland to avoid a pre-Christmas quarantine. Wigmore (right) pictured on holiday in Switzerland

Andy Wigmore said he had had ‘the best time’ holidaying in Wengen, a village in the Swiss Alps, before fleeing to avoid a quarantine introduced in response to a new variant of coronavirus being discovered in the UK. Pictured: A holiday snap shared by Wigmore on Instagram 

Speaking from his home in Oxfordshire, Wigmore said the message from Swiss authorities warned him not to leave his room or residence and to avoid all contacts.

It also said that a £8,324 [CHF 10,000] fine could be charged for non-compliance.

‘The message was pretty ominous,’ he told MailOnline, adding that he was contacted several times by Swiss authorities as they attempted to establish his whereabouts before he eventually told them he was back in England.

‘If we had not got out when we did we would have missed Christmas,’ he said. 

The former diplomat also described his journey from Switzerland in an Instagram post which gained renewed attention on Monday when it was reported that hundreds of tourists from Britain forced into quarantine at another Swiss ski resort fled in the night rather than seeing their holidays go downhill. 

Last night Andy Wigmore claimed he had not broken any rules, telling MailOnline: ‘I am now in quarantine and have been since I got back from France.

‘We left Switzerland before the new regulations came into force, so we didn’t break any rules.

‘I am part of the Oxford Covid test so I had a test before I went to Switzerland, I had a test when I got back from France and I’m planning to have another test in the next couple of days.’

Wigmore and his family travelled from Wengen to Basel before catching a train to Paris and heading to the UK via Eurostar

He wrote in an Instagram post that he and his family ‘managed to escape’ by crossing into France and catching the last Eurostar from Paris to reach England in time for Christmas

Staff at the luxury Verbier resort, known as ‘Little London’ for its popularity with British tourists, began to realise guests were missing after trays of food left outside their rooms remained untouched. 

A spokesman for the Bagnes municipality in the canton of Valais, where the resort is located, said roughly 420 tourists from Britain, including Swiss nationals, were ordered into quarantine before Christmas. 

About 50 fled immediately, Jean-Marc Sandoz told local newspaper SonntagsZeitung, while less than a dozen of the 370 others were still at the resort as of Sunday.  

While travellers from the UK require a negative coronavirus test to enter France, the border at Chartelard is often unmanned, one France-based Twitter user said.  

Hundreds of tourists from Britain forced into quarantine in a Swiss ski resort fled in the night rather than seeing their holidays go downhill

Switzerland’s ski resorts were set to boom with snow-seeking British tourists – but a flight ban due to the new Covid-19 variant found in the UK put those plans on ice.

Some, like Verbier, remained open as cantons were largely responsible for implementing and enforcing their own coronavirus restrictions before the federal government imposed the flight ban.

The ruling by the Swiss government also included a 10-day retroactive quarantine for anyone who arrived from the UK since December 14, following the discovery of a new variant of the coronavirus which experts fear spreads much more quickly. 

Dozens of other countries introduced similar flight bans in response to the new variant, which has spread to several other countries in Europe.  

Some of those who fled the Swiss Verbier resort have resurfaced in neighbouring France, according to Swiss authorities

Municipal spokesman Sandoz said many of the Verbier resort’s guests from the UK ‘stayed in quarantine for a day before they set off unnoticed under the cover of darkness’. 

‘It was when they saw the meal trays remained untouched that the hoteliers noticed that the customers had gone,’ Sandoz told ATS news agency. Calls to rooms had also gone unanswered.

Some later contacted their hotels to find out whether they still had to pay for the nights they’d booked, The Guardian reported. 

Sandoz said some guests had since got in touch from neighbouring France, where the ski resorts were closed ‘but the Brits could at least get some fresh air’. 

He added that according to a Saturday survey of the ski resort’s hotels, fewer than 10 people would still be in quarantine.

The rest would either have left or their quarantine time would have expired.

‘We can’t blame them. In most cases, quarantine was untenable. Imagine four people staying in a hotel room of 20 square metres,’ Sandoz said.

Among those who have remained at the resort are Londoners Tom Waycott, 27, and Josh Pitchford, 28, who are quarantined in a room at the Hotel La Rotonde. 

The friend arrived from the UK on December 18 for a five-day holiday but were forced to cancel Christmas at home and spend it in their room in Verbier.  

Among those who have remained at the resort are Londoners Tom Waycott, 27, and Josh Pitchford (pictured), 28

Mr Waycott, who works for a Mayfair-based real estate family office, said his hotel has been ‘brilliant’

Mr Waycott, who works for a Mayfair-based real estate family office, said: ‘It’s been quite an experience.

‘We have a balcony which has been a saviour because we are literally not allowed out of our room. The hotel has been brilliant and they put food outside the door for us.

‘We have stuck to the quarantine because the fine is really hefty.

‘A friend told us about a Brit on Christmas Eve who scanned his ski lift pass, which had his name on it, at the bottom of Les Ruinettes lift and by the time he was at the top there were officials waiting for him and a massive row broke out because he was English.’ 

Catherine Turner, 53, travelled to Verbier from Somerset did not have to quarantine having arrived in the resort two days before December 14. 

She said: ‘You certainly feel like you have to speak in hushed tones if you’re speaking English. You do feel a bit self-conscious.

Switzerland’s ski resorts were set to boom with snow-seeking British tourists – but a flight ban due to the new Covid-19 variant raging in England put those plans on ice

‘Everyone here is very supportive and they love the English so it’s really that you don’t want to put them in a difficult position. Not that I think they would ‘dob’ you in or anything. 

‘In any case, everyone is very respectful of the rules. It’s not like it was Steve McQueen’s Great Escape. Anyone would think tunnels have been dug to get out of Verbier.’ 

Sandoz said some tourists had left feeling ‘a little angry with Switzerland’ and with the sense of having been ‘trapped’. 

‘Guests from Britain were understandably furious, accosting hoteliers and complaining to the tourism board,’ he said. ‘We don’t know if they’ll ever return.’ 

Sandoz fears the incident will affect the future of the community, according to Swissinfo.ch. He said his own British-born neighbour had been criticised because of her accent despite having lived in Switzerland for 40 years.  

Sandoz called the whole situation ‘the worst week our community has ever experienced’. 

Hoteliers and tourist chiefs in the luxury Swiss destination have rallied around their most important foreign clientele

Hoteliers and tourist chiefs in the luxury Swiss destination have rallied around their most important foreign clientele.

One said: ‘We are a holiday resort not a prison. I don’t blame them for leaving rather than sitting cooped up in a bedroom 24-hours-a-day.’

Meanwhile Simon Wiget, the Director of Verbier Tourist Office, apologised to his most important foreign client.

He said: ‘We accept it is a sanitary decision and it is very difficult for the state, particularly when we are seeing a new mutant strain.

‘But the British must not be stigmatised. The Brits arrived in Verbier anticipating fresh mountain air but then the government told them they have to quarantine retroactively and suddenly they are stuck in a hotel room.

Dozens of other countries introduced similar flight bans in response to the new variant, which has spread to several other countries in Europe

‘The reflex would be to leave if you are told this. I think the vast majority of people would have believed they were acting responsibly and within the law. 

‘They announced themselves to the authorities and would have been given special allowance to return to the UK to quarantine. Most people used this. They discreetly went away.

‘There was no great escape in the dead of night. They are being picked on unfairly.

‘The hotels here did the correct thing and informed the authorities of who was staying but it’s not for the hotels to enforce any measures.’

An employee of the three-star Hotel Ermitage said: ‘We had one British person. But he quit the hotel in the early hours of Christmas morning without telling us.

‘I called him in his room and there was no answer. The room was empty.

‘I had his credit card details so it was no problem in terms of payment. He had been due to stay until the 28th.

The Verbier Tourist Office has been holding daily crisis cell meetings to try to deal with the ever-changing coronavirus picture

‘But I am a hotel, not a jail. These people are on holiday. I understand their position.

‘We are a holiday resort not a prison. I don’t blame them for leaving rather than sitting cooped up in a bedroom 24-hours-a-day.’

Another Verbier hotelier, who did not want to be named, said: ‘We had two Britons but they left on Christmas Eve. They had arrived on Saturday 19th for a week, and then were told they weren’t allowed to ski and had to stay imprisoned in their rooms. To be honest I am surprised they stayed as long as they did.

‘They were very nice people but they didn’t tell me they were leaving, maybe they thought I would tell the police which of course is not my job.’

A spokesman for the W Verbier, a luxury hotel in the heart of the resort, said: ‘Unfortunately we can say nothing.

‘The British are a big part of our target market but I cannot tell you anything about our British guests or the numbers or anything.’

Speaking on Monday, Alain Berset, the Swiss home affairs minister said the federal government was aware of the absconding tourists.

The drastic ruling by the Swiss government included a 10-day retroactive quarantine for anyone who arrived from Britain since December 14

‘That is of course a problem. I don’t know where they have gone. I think they just went home. But the federal government has no options, we are not responsible for enforcement. We had to react quickly that everything wasn’t going perfectly, that’s clear,’ Tages-Anzeiger newspaper reported.

Swiss officials have sharply criticised the federal government for imposing the retroactive quarantine without sufficient warning and leaving cantons responsible for enforcing it.

Christophe Darbellay, head of government in the canton of Valais – where Verbaire is – said Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health ‘had made our work unnecessarily difficult’ by introducing the quarantine in such a way,’ The Local Switzerland reported. 

Darbellay added that the canton had made every effort to ensure all requirements were met but said they had received valuable information about the quarantine too late from the government.

Greens National Councillor Katharina Prelicz-Huber said: ‘You’d have to laugh if it weren’t tragic’ in reference to the flight of the tourists from the UK.

She called for more personnel to ensure people were following the rules. 

British tourists normally make up 21 per cent of the Verbier clientele, and most start pouring in just after Christmas.

Many Swiss visitors also cancelled bookings, fearing that the resort may have British guests carrying the new strain of the virus. 

British tourists normally make up 21 per cent of the Verbier clientele, and most start pouring in just after Christmas

Voted Switzerland’s best ski resort for the last two years, Verbier markets itself as offering ‘adrenaline-packed thrills, simple pleasures and a chic lifestyle’.

The Verbier Tourist Office has been holding daily crisis cell meetings to try to deal with the ever-changing coronavirus picture.  

The resort hit the headlines in early December after visitors shared photos of dense crowds waiting on ski lifts. No one appeared to be wearing a mask or practising social distancing. 

Flights between Switzerland and the two countries were halted on Monday, but the first outbound flights from Zurich to Britain resumed on Thursday. 

Two cases of the new British coronavirus variant have been detected in Switzerland and one in neighbouring Liechtenstein, the Swiss health ministry said on Sunday.

Two cases of the new South African variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, have also been detected, the ministry said. 

At least 92 flights went from the UK to Switzerland between December 14 and 20, bringing some 10,000 tourists from Britain into the country, German news site Bild.de reported. 

The Swiss Government obtained the passenger lists from each flight in order to track down the tourists, the website said. 

It also persuaded telecommunications companies to send texts to everyone with a UK or South African SIM card, notifying them of the need to quarantine.

Do you know any of the British tourists? Email tips@dailymail.com