{"id":422434,"date":"2026-02-12T21:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422434\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T21:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:33:07","slug":"guardian-view-on-sir-jim-ratcliffe-britain-does-not-need-political-lectures-from-a-billionaire-tax-exile-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422434\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardian view on Sir Jim Ratcliffe: Britain does not need political lectures from a billionaire tax exile | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2020, the year Sir Jim Ratcliffe moved his huge fortune to Monaco, migrants in the United Kingdom made tax contributions estimated<\/a> to be worth around\u00a0\u00a320bn. Sir Jim, by jetting off to a tax haven on\u00a0the French Riviera, saved<\/a> himself an estimated \u00a34bn. It took some brass neck for the expat owner of Ineos and co-owner of Manchester United football club\u00a0to lecture<\/a> the country, using inflammatory and offensive language, on the perils of immigration.<\/p>\n

Where to begin? The statistics used by Sir Jim to back his claim that Britain was being \u201ccolonised\u201d by migrants, in an interview with Sky News, were flatly wrong. They were also astonishingly crass, coming from a man who presides over a sporting institution famous for and proud of its global fanbase and international connections.<\/p>\n

Current Manchester United stars such as Cameroon\u2019s Bryan Mbeumo and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire\u2019s Amad\u00a0Diallo will\u00a0doubtless have their views on Sir\u00a0Jim\u2019s intervention. So will its French former icon, Eric\u00a0Cantona \u2013\u00a0another coloniser whose genius generated a memorable outpouring of francophilia<\/a> on the red side of Manchester. Representatives of the club\u2019s many Muslim followers have already given\u00a0theirs, questioning whether they should feel welcome in United\u2019s Old Trafford stadium.<\/p>\n

The Ineos<\/a> owner\u2019s football interests have given his comments a prominence they would not have otherwise had. But the willingness of a high-profile public figure to echo great replacement theory tropes is\u00a0yet another disturbing sign of the times.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer was right to describe Sir Jim\u2019s as \u201coffensive and wrong\u201d on Thursday. But he himself was obliged last summer to express belated regret for asserting that Britain risked<\/a> becoming \u201can island of strangers\u201d. Reform UK\u2019s highest-profile recruit, Robert Jenrick, has notoriously noted the absence of white faces in a district of Birmingham. The previously unsayable is being routinely said, as Nigel Farage and Reform shift the parameters of legitimate speech in British public life.<\/p>\n

A rattled Sir Jim has issued<\/a> a statement in which he regretted causing offence but asserted the need for \u201copen debate\u201d. Normalising inflammatory language which presents migrants as hostile invaders does not enhance the possibility of civilised discussion. It contributes to the rise of everyday racism and xenophobia on the UK\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most eloquent response to Sir Jim\u2019s comments has come from the Manchester Labour mayor, Andy Burnham, who said<\/a> that they betrayed the values for which the city traditionally stood. In the 19th century, its mill workers went on strike in solidarity with enslaved cotton-pickers in the American south. As Reform seeks a statement victory in Gorton and Denton, with a candidate who has made dog-whistle nativism his calling card, Manchester has again become a political crucible.<\/p>\n

Mr Burnham, who was denied<\/a> his wish to run against Reform in that race, is on one side of that fight. The Oldham-born co-owner of arguably England\u2019s most famous football club has given an interview that plays to the talking points of the other. As Nigel Farage\u2019s intellectual outriders speak<\/a> of a \u201cpolitics of home\u201d, which casts doubt over certain citizens\u2019 right to be considered British, a billionaire tax exile in Monaco has added grist to their mill. The irony will not be lost on most Mancunians, despite panicked attempts<\/a> by Manchester United to limit the fallout. But the potential damage done is no laughing matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2020, the year Sir Jim Ratcliffe moved his huge fortune to Monaco, migrants in the United Kingdom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-422434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}