Sir Jim Ratcliffe

So, according to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain has been “colonised” by immigrants.

If historical illiteracy were an Olympic sport, he would probably win a medal.

The idea that Brits are suffering from what they perfected over centuries is hilarious.

This rather sums it up quite well.

Ratcliffe is, of course, in the public eye because of his association with Manchester United.

Here is the full interview in Antwerp, with his musings on immigration starting at 13 minutes.

Here’s the key part:

“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? I mean, the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it’s 70 million. That’s 12 million people.”

To fact-check him on those numbers, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK population was 67 million by mid-2020 and 70 million by mid-2024.

Contrary to what Ratcliffe said, the UK population was approximately 58.9 million in 2000.

The Old Trafford club has a diverse team and a global supporter base.

Immigrants built Manchester, and many of them were Irish.

My kith and kin didn’t arrive there as colonists but as sweated labour, desperate to survive.

An important book from my undergraduate days was The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) by Friedrich Engels.

 

Much of his research was carried out in Manchester.

The close associate of Karl Marx noted that the Irish living in the city’s “Little Ireland” were in abject poverty.

Since then, generations of Irish immigrants have enriched and defined much of Manchester’s character.

The contribution of the Second Generation Irish to the cultural life of Britain is massively disproportionate.

Here is my piece in the Irish Voice from last March on the subject.

Being colonised by immigrants is a well-worn nativist trope regularly trotted out by the far right.

It’s the Famine Song vibe redolent of the Ibrox klanbase.

Man United fan and proud second-generation Irishman Terry Christian didn’t miss.

Sadly,  this nativist hostility isn’t anything new.

The featured image is no urban myth.

My father from Mayo saw them in England in the 1950s.

He told my mother, and she told me.

History forgotten is a betrayal.

History remembered is a weapon.

For the avoidance of doubt, Jim Ratcliffe is definitely a billionaire, and he lives in Monaco.

It is a gathering point for the fabulously wealthy and well-connected.

So much so that, of a population of 40,000, only 8,000 are native-born.

The overwhelming majority are, like Ratcliffe, immigrants.

Of course, just living in that city-state on the French Riviera doesn’t make you a real billionaire.

Like this chap, for example, despite what you might have once read in the Daily Radar.

Just clarifying…