Paul Rouse: Jim Ratcliffe is wealthy beyond reason, but money no insulation from ignorance

Jim Ratcliffe's interview with Sky News revealed himself in all manner of ways.

Jim Ratcliffe, Co-owner of Manchester United  (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Jim Ratcliffe, the man who is co-owner of Manchester United Football Club, is the poster child for a very particular type of self-confidence.

It is that of the man who has made extreme wealth and believes that there is nothing he could not do. His way to success in business allows him to profess on the world. He has special insight. A certain genius.

The lucky ones are those millionaires and billionaires who retain enough self-awareness to express their views only in the circles in which they move, to supplicants in their pay, and to family who are stuck.

It is something of a gift that Jim Ratcliffe feels the need to share his world-view with the public. If he were just another billionaire, these views would disappear into the ether. The fact that he is the co-owner of one of the biggest clubs in the world changes that.

Ratcliffe – for those who do not know him – grew up in Manchester and went on to found petrochemicals firm INEOS in the 1990s. He made monstrous amounts of money and used some of it to buy just over a quarter of Manchester United from the Glazer family. By the end of 2024, the cost of this was the best part of £1.5 billion.

This week he sat down with Ed Conway from Sky News and gave an interview in which he revealed himself in all manner of ways.

Firstly, he said of immigrants: “The UK is being colonised by immigrants, really, isn’t it? I mean, the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it’s 70 million. That’s 12 million people.” 

The figures are, of course, completely wrong – entirely made up. Indeed, they are wrong by the guts of 10 million people.

What is most interesting is the language used – talk of European countries colonised by immigrants is a loaded term repeated by those on the far right. It proliferates on social media where it is presented as historical truth by agitators and racists; it is language specifically designed to inflame.

It might be noted in passing that only three of the 14 players who played for Manchester United against West Ham United this week are English.

It might also be noted that Jim Ratcliffe lives in Monaco.

Secondly, Ratcliffe said that there were “nine million people on benefits” in Britain and that one of the major issues in the country was “with people opting to take benefits rather than working for a living”.

The phrase “on benefits” is suitably vague to defy easy categorisation. Does he mean unemployed? The fact that he focuses on those who he claims are declining to work for a living in favour of taking benefits suggests that he does mean unemployed.

If that is the case, the UK government published a Labour Force Survey on January 20th last which said: “1.84 million people aged 16+ were unemployed.” 

There is another figure which appears in the survey and it says that there are 9.02 million who are “economically inactive”. This figure includes people between 16 and 64 who are students (at least 2.5 million), retired from working (at least 1 million), looking after family and home or otherwise caring (at least 1.5 million), and so on. It does not mean they are “on benefits.” 

For his part, Ratcliffe has made some 450 people redundant at Manchester United – some 40% of the workforce. This figure includes two managers (Erik ten Hag and Rueben Amorim) and a sporting director (Dan Ashworth).

Ratclife moved his tax residency to Monaco in 2020.

His company INEOS announced on December 16th last that it was receiving a £50 million grant (as well as a £75 milion loan guarantee) from the British government as part of an investment in its industrial site at Grangemouth. Ratcliffe was quoted in a press release as saying: “The support of the UK Government is welcome.” Presumably, this statement holds for the other state money received by INEOS.

Ratcliffe’s proposed £2 billion rebuild of Old Trafford cannot be undertaken without an enormous handout from the British government.

Thirdly, Ratcliffe offered the following opinion of his fellow Brexiteer Nigel Farage: “I think Nigel is an intelligent man and I think he's got good intentions.” 

There is no need here to offer comment on that – except to say that it is all of a piece with the rest of Ratcliffe’s diatribe. And if ever two men deserved each other.

What then followed was t he classic non-apology apology in which Ratcliffe displayed his arrogance in full flare. He was, he said, “sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern” and claimed that it was nonetheless “important to raise the issue of controlled and well-managed immigration that supports economic growth”.

Naturally, there was no acknowledgement that he had been wrong. And of course no sense that he was capable of reflection.

The look behind the curtain reveals a man who has been caught in the warp of disinformation and ideological nastiness that has consumed so many around the world. He may be wealthy beyond reason, but his money is no insulation from ignorance.

The 1958 Group of supporters is right when it condemns Ratcliffe as “a total embarrassment”. It is a stain on Manchester United Football Club that one of its owners should peddle extremist talking points.

Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin