Keir Starmer criticized businessman Jim Ratcliffe’s claims that Britain has been “colonized by immigrants.”
Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United Football Club, has praised Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and claimed the U.K. is being “colonized by immigrants.”
During an interview with Sky News, Ratcliffe — a British billionaire who backed Brexit then changed his tax residency to Monaco in 2020 — lamented the state of the U.K. economy and pinned the blame on people on benefits and migrants.
“If you really want to deal with the major issues of immigration, of people who take benefits rather than working for a living, you’re going to have to do things which are unpopular, and show some courage,” he said.
Ratcliffe, who made most of his estimated €17 billion fortune in the chemicals industry with his company INEOS, told Sky he had recently met Farage, but stopped short of endorsing him to become prime minister over incumbent Keir Starmer.
“I think Nigel is an intelligent man and I think he’s got good intentions,” said Ratcliffe. “But in a way, you could say exactly the same about Keir, when Keir came in. I think it needs somebody who’s prepared to be unpopular for a period of time to get the big issues sorted out.”
Earlier in the interview, Ratcliffe asserted that Britain is being “colonized by immigrants,” citing numbers that are not accurate.
“You can’t have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in,” he said. “I mean, the U.K. has been colonized. It’s costing too much money.”
“The U.K. has been colonized by immigrants, really, hasn’t it? I mean, the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it’s 70 million. That’s 12 million people.”
While there has been a large increase in net migration since Britain left the EU, the numbers are not as notable as 12 million in four years. As pointed out by Sky in its article, the population of the U.K. was, in fact, 67 million in 2020. It hasn’t been as low as 58 million since the year 2000.
Starmer fired back at Ratcliffe’s comments, calling them “offensive and wrong” in a social media post and calling for him to apologize. “Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country,” his post on X said.
Manchester United is one of the most-supported clubs in the U.K., but has failed to win a Premier League title since the departure of legendary manager Alex Ferguson in 2013.
Ratcliffe said he has been “very unpopular” at the club because of changes he has made, but that in his view the tweaks have been for the better. Those changes include severe cost-cutting, making hundreds of staff redundant and removing Ferguson from a lucrative ambassadorial role.
Show Racism the Red Card, a group which campaigns against racism, particularly in football, said it was “deeply concerned” by the Manchester United co-owner’s comments.
“Language of this kind echoes narratives that have historically been used to stigmatise migrant communities, fuel division, and legitimise hostility toward minority groups,” it said on its website. “At a time when hate crime is rising and communities are feeling increasingly unsafe, public figures must recognise the weight and consequences of their words.”
This article has been updated with comments from Keir Starmer and Show Racism the Red Card.