UK’s Starmer condemns billionaire Ratcliffe’s immigration comments, calls for apology

LONDON, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday condemned comments by billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who said Britain had been “colonised by immigrants” in a broadcast interview, calling the remarks offensive and urging him to apologise. 

Ratcliffe, the founder of chemicals group INEOS and minority owner of Manchester United, told Sky News that Britain faced “huge levels of immigrants coming in” and argued that the country “has been colonised”, saying migration was “costing too much money”. 

“Offensive and wrong. Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country. Jim Ratcliffe should apologise,” Starmer said later in a post on X. 

KEY CONTEXT

* Ratcliffe linked his comments to concerns aboutbenefits, saying “you can’t have an economy with nine millionpeople on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in.” * Immigration is consistently among the top voter concernsin Britain according to opinion polls, and has helped fuel therise of Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party Reform UK. * Official data also shows that around 10 million people ofworking age currently receive some kind of state benefit, thoughless than 1.7 million of these are classed as out-of-workclaimants.  * The rise in population has been overwhelmingly driven byimmigration. Studies consistently show migration has an overallpositive impact on economic growth.

(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti and William James; editing by Edward Tobin)