British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has known as on the billionaire co-owner of Manchester United Jim Ratcliffe to apologize for claiming the UK has been “colonized by immigrants.”
Starmer said Wednesday that Ratcliffe’s feedback had been “offensive and wrong,” including that “Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country.”
Ratcliffe, who based petrochemical firm Ineos, is certainly one of Britain’s richest males. He made his inflammatory feedback to Sky News in a wide-ranging interview launched earlier Wednesday.
“I don’t think the (British) economy is in a good place,” he stated. “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 colonized. It’s costing too much money. The UK has been colonized by immigrants, really, hasn’t it?”
He cited incorrect inhabitants figures, claiming the UK’s inhabitants had risen from 58 million in 2020 to 70 million individuals at present. In actuality, the UK’s inhabitants has elevated from 67 million in 2020 to 69.5 million individuals, in keeping with estimates by the Office for National Statistics.
NCS has contacted Ineos for remark.
Ratcliffe, who’s the seventh richest man in Britain with a web value of round £17 billion ($23 billion) in keeping with the Sunday Times Rich List, moved to tax-free Monaco in 2020.
In December 2025, his firm Ineos accepted a help bundle from the British authorities value over £120 million ($164 million) to stop its chemical plant in Grangemouth, Scotland from closing with the lack of 500 jobs. Ineos additionally invested £150 million ($205 million) into the positioning.
Successive British governments have pledged to scale back immigration which, like in different Western nations, has turn into a political flashpoint.
Net migration to the UK reached document ranges in 2022, swelled by the battle in Ukraine and the post-pandemic lifting of journey restrictions, however has since dropped off sharply.
Ratcliffe’s feedback drew criticism from Liberal Democrat celebration chief Ed Davey, who said they had been “totally out of step with British values,” in addition to from a number of Manchester United supporter teams.
The Manchester United Supporters Trust said the membership “belongs to all of its supporters.”
“No fan should feel excluded from following or supporting the club because of their race, religion, nationality or background,” it added. “Comments from the club’s senior leadership should make inclusion easier, not harder.”
The Stretford Sikhs supporters membership emphasised immigrants’ contributions to town of Manchester and warned that “using language that alienates the very people who built this city and support this club is dangerous and divisive.”
Ratcliffe’s feedback align with the arguments made by Britain’s right-wing populist Reform UK celebration, which ties its anti-immigrant message to defending the nation.
The Manchester United Muslim Supporters Club stated using the phrase colonized “echoes language frequently used in far-right narratives that frame migrants as invaders and demographic threats.”
“Such rhetoric has real-world consequences,” the group added. “The UK has experienced sustained increases in hate crimes in recent years, including rises in Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, racially motivated attacks, and hostility towards migrants and people of color.”