The billionaire co-owner of Manchester United, who also owns chemicals empire Ineos, called on the country’s politicians to “show some courage” by tackling immigration, welfare dependence and the weak economy.
“You can’t have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in,” he told Sky News.
“If you really want to deal with the major issues of immigration, with people opting to take benefits rather than working for a living… then you’re going to have to do some things which are unpopular, and show some courage.”
Sir Jim wrongly claimed that the population of Britain had swelled by 12 million people in the past five years to reach 70 million, blaming the increase on migration.
He said: “The UK has been colonised by immigrants, really, hasn’t it?”
Sir Keir Starmer wrote in a post on X that the comments were “offensive and wrong”.
“Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country,” the Prime Minister said. “Jim Ratcliffe should apologise.”
Sir Jim, whose personal fortune of more than £17 billion makes him one of Britain’s richest men, said Sir Keir had to grip the challenges facing the economy.
“You have to do some difficult things with the UK to get it back on track, because at the moment I don’t think the economy is in a good state,” he said.
He said he was unsure whether the Prime Minister was being prevented by “the apparatus” from tackling the problems, or whether he was “maybe too nice”....<<<Read More>>>...
