BILLIONAIRE Ineos owner Jim Ratcliffe has claimed that the UK is being “colonised” by immigrants.
Ratcliffe, Britain’s seventh-richest man and a resident in tax-free Monaco since 2020, took aim at people receiving state support and immigrants during an interview with Sky News on Wednesday.
“You can't have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in," he said. “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.”
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The Office of National Statistics (ONS) estimates that the population of the UK was 67 million in mid-2020 and 70m in mid-2024. The UK population was estimated at 58.9 million in 2000.
Ratcliffe’s criticism of the number of people on benefits comes shortly after the UK Government awarded a £120m grant to his chemicals company, Ineos, which closed Scotland's only oil refinery in Grangemouth last year with a loss of around 400 jobs.
The grant from the UK Government to Ratcliffe’s chemical firm, which equates to a large portion of his £17 billion fortune, was to help to protect 500 jobs.
The chemicals boss said he had met recently with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, saying of him: “I think Nigel is an intelligent man, and I think he's got good intentions.
“But in a way, you could say exactly the same about Keir Starmer. I think it needs somebody who's prepared to be unpopular for a period of time to get the big issues sorted out.”
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