Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is Manchester United part owner, is facing a backlash after claiming that the UK has been “colonised by immigrants,” which he feels is “costing too much money”
Piers Morgan has taken aim at Manchester United part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe after his extraordinary immigration rant.
The billionaire, 73, claimed yesterday the UK has been “colonised by immigrants” and described Nigel Farage as an “intelligent man” with “good intentions”. The entrepreneur faces a backlash for the remarks, including from Manchester United Muslim Supporters Club (MUMSC) which said it is “deeply concerned” by the comments.
Now, controvesial broadcaster Piers has weighed in on the controversy, branding Sir Jim “a stinking race-baiting hypocrite”. Piers posted on X, known formerly as Twitter: “Aside from his blatant lies/ignorance about UK population numbers, Ratcliffe is an immigrant tax exile in Monaco, and most of his Manchester United team are immigrants to UK. So he’s a stinking race-baiting hypocrite.”
The post has been viewed more than 1.2million times on the social media platform, and liked 20,000 times. It has led to a lively debate about Sir Jim’s remarks, delivered on Sky News earlier that day.
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Piers, who presented Good Morning Britain on ITV from 2015 to 2021, referred to the Manchester United team, which in its last game on Tuesday featured eight starting players born overseas. Only two of the nine substitutes for the West Ham United game at the London Stadium were British.
But Sir Jim, owner of petrochemicals conglomerate INEOS, had said: “You can’t have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in. I mean, the UK has been colonised. It’s costing too much money. The UK has been colonised by immigrants, really, hasn’t it?”
Yet, the billionaire, who splits his time between Monaco and his waterside mansion in Hampshire, then inaccurately added: “I mean, the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it’s 70 million. That’s 12 million people.”
It’s estimated by the Office for National Statistics that the population of the UK was 67 million in mid-2020 and 70 million in mid-2024. In 2000, the UK population was estimated to be 58.9 million.
Keir Starmer also slammed Sir Jim yesterday. The PM branded the Manchester United part-owner’s comments “offensive” and called on him to apologise. In a post on social media, Mr Starmer said: “Offensive and wrong. Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country. Jim Ratcliffe should apologise.”
And Labour MP Alex Sobel, whose parents came to England from Israel, hit out at the “outrageous” comments. He said: “My parents came to this country in the 1970s, contributing hugely as educators, business people, and volunteers in the community. Across this country, immigrants have contributed and enriched our culture.”
The MP for Leeds Central and Headingley added: “These are outrageous and inflammatory remarks from an out of touch multi millionaire businessman who clearly has no empathy with hard-pressed families. To seek to stigmatise immigrants and welfare claimants in this way is shameful.”
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