It’s interesting that this part of the interview has hit the spotlight. You have to watch and listen for a long time before this subject comes up, if you got a text at that moment you’d miss it. However, there is more to this than the colonisation issue. The population figures he quotes are wildly in accurate. The lower figure being valid for 60-70s.
The 9 M on benefits will no doubt knee jerk people into imagining layabouts on the dole. Not so, it covers Disability, Housing Benefit, Universal Credit, Child Benefit, school Meals and hosts of other things that people need in a high rent, low wage economy where both parents need to work to just get by. We subsidise big companies who pay low wages to their staff by topping up the incomes of their workers. We make private landlords and investment companies rich by topping up tenants with housing benefit.
Immigrants are apparently less likely to claim Universal credit and more likely to claim Housing Benefit.
The working population is decreasing and we need outside labour to keep everything running. It’s the same in mainland Europe. It’s too expensive to replace the population with 2.3 kids per family.
My family is relentlessly white. At Brexit time my son said to me Shit! I know 18 mainland Europeans. Am I going to lose all my friends? One of my closest friends is Austrian and works as an IT manager in a German Waste to Power company in Plymouth. Fortunately she was deemed useful enough for indefinite leave to stay. Through her I have become aware of dozens of others similarly living and working locally (deepest, darkest Devon). All useful members of society ( and white). We are so privileged.
This is the most accurate opinion that I have read in a long time about colonisation. From 1946 to 1956 I lived in what was the former German Colony of Tanganyika and in the British colony of Kenya close to the border with Uganda. I witnessed the terrible violence of the May May financed by China which brought out the worst human behaviour on both sides. Stable democratic government has not yet been established in all former British colonies and many of the immigrants coming to this country invited to work or as refugees should be able to receive our considerable help. They generally have an amazing work ethic, often because they need more than one paid job to meet their living costs. The first man I heard using the colonisation insult was Trump in reference to the UK and Europe. Reform political candidates have picked that up and I even heard it repeated several times on the BBC news last night. The utter ignorance of such people deserves to be called out and criticised for the racial prejudice it represents. If it was justified one would have to ignore the real evidence that the sons and daughters of such immigrants form the backbone of our medical and public services. Where is the white man's superiority in that? My own family were illegal migrants nearly a thousand years ago and we are so interbred that we are indistinguishable from native Anglo Saxons except perhaps for our long noses.
You are of course, completely correct about the term 'colonisation'. Unfortunately, now it has been used by such a well-known public figure, and his supporters will not comprehend the correct meaning, the term is sure to used and weaponised by the likes of Reform.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed David, Reform always jumps on everyone else’s bandwagon and never has an original idea. Always regurgitating Trump, Bannon, Putin, Radcliffe or any other right winger.
Absolutely Bear, it was a disgraceful comment, and the thoughts of a Football Team he has financial interest in, relying on the skills of many overseas players makes it even more galling to read imho.
Ratcliffe demonstrates his allegiance to the Epstein Class. He’s clearly a fully paid up member.
This is the way to tackle these billionaires imho. Call them members of the Epstein Class and let’s start defining this group of uber-rich men who are out of control and causing huge damage
The newly released Epstein files are teaching us a lot about what the American oligarchs and their European counterparts think of race, gender and colonialism. And it runs deep - it’s not just Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and their overt Apartheid-era white supremacy. Spoiler : racial pseudoscience is back. As is misogyny disguised as pseudogenetics.
Many of them have internalised the great replacement conspiracy theory.
Jim Ratcliffe is not an outlier: he’s typical of his class.
Bear, thanks - its important that people understand what is being said and indeed what British Colonial rule was - warts and all. However I think that Ratcliffe's comments are 'loaded' he is clearly trying to tip things back towards Reform - as he see's that as the best business opportunity for him and the other billionaires he hangs around with.
They can use the denigration of immigrants as a device (and its been done before time and time again) and then when the far right have power - what will they do - give hand outs to their mates' businesses (see Grangemouth); give contracts - say supplying products to the NHS and of course big tax cuts - all in the name of attracting jobs and investment - which incidentially never appear.
There is no accident here - its quite deliberate. His mistake is that he owns Man U and that has forced him to be contrite.
Yep, Jim Ratcliffe is very deliberately employing loaded - as in dice - language to get the knee-jerk emotive reaction/result from his target audience.
That audience, I would suggest, being the RefUKKKer-literal as opposed to those we have come to recognise, all too often over the decades, as 'big on flags, hard of thinking'.
A few years ago they were UKIP, BNP, NF (!), BM, LEL, NSM, BU, BUF and several other alphabetti-spaghetti dis-Organisations, all coming out with similar populist, weaponised intolerance of 'Them' - and ANY 'Them' will do! - all based in the fear of somehow losing umm...SOMETHING! That something is rarely specified, but when it is, it even more rarely stands up to scrutiny.
The fact that this fear is predominantly based on feelings makes it tricky to counter, something that the charlatans (NF, Stinky Don, Tindall, Verrall, LePen etc) know and utilise again and again and again.
'Colonisation' is a 'bomb in the brain' word for them. It conjures up a lot of reactions simultaneously and so needs to be deconstructed rationally, which takes both time and the presence of the necessary critical apparatus and skills.
Without those being present, the word becomes a trigger, a dog whistle, if you like.
Jim Ratcliffe knows this, too.
If anything, us peasants in most countries - rather than the countries per se - are being colonised by rich bastards such as him.
The 'oligarchs', the 'super rich', the 'Tech Bros', the 'military/industrial/media complex' need to exploit and extract from something and that something is us!
The East India Company model has come home to roost, as it was always going to, I suppose.
What Michael Hudson has called the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) economy is in place. It contributes as little as possible whilst extracting as much as possible: it is not even symbiotic, it is parasitic.
I always think of Satnam Sanghera's phrase "We're over here because you were over there". Can't be said too often. And all those people he's insulted (at the least), all paying their taxes, unlike him. Would love to see all the foreign-born Man Utd players put in transfer requests. If that's what my boss thought of me, I certainly would.
Pieces of sh*t like “sir” Jim Ratcliffe should remember they’re immigrants in another country and stop throwing stones from their glasshouse! One of them might just get thrown back!
Well done, Bear! You nailed it perfectly. As someone from the subcontinent where the British colonised us for over 200 years, I can relate to what actual colonisation looks like. Thank you for this 🙌
Ratcliffe is used to going unchallenged because of his vast wealth.
His (non) apology illustrates this. There is a strand of behaviour in society that automatically validates the opinions of the wealthy and their interests.
Thank you again so perfectly expressed . My vocabulary when I heard that awful emigrant using totally wrong language and utterly inaccurate statistics was far less measured .
Colonisation was used deliberately to enrage the far-right in the country. I have no idea on his voting record but I'll put money on Ratcliffe was right wing Tory and now a far-right Reformer. What can't and shouldn't be ignored is the fact Ratcliffe does this whilst living as a tax exile in Monaco.
Ratcliffe should apologise to the trees for stealing the oxygen they produce.
It’s interesting that this part of the interview has hit the spotlight. You have to watch and listen for a long time before this subject comes up, if you got a text at that moment you’d miss it. However, there is more to this than the colonisation issue. The population figures he quotes are wildly in accurate. The lower figure being valid for 60-70s.
The 9 M on benefits will no doubt knee jerk people into imagining layabouts on the dole. Not so, it covers Disability, Housing Benefit, Universal Credit, Child Benefit, school Meals and hosts of other things that people need in a high rent, low wage economy where both parents need to work to just get by. We subsidise big companies who pay low wages to their staff by topping up the incomes of their workers. We make private landlords and investment companies rich by topping up tenants with housing benefit.
Immigrants are apparently less likely to claim Universal credit and more likely to claim Housing Benefit.
The working population is decreasing and we need outside labour to keep everything running. It’s the same in mainland Europe. It’s too expensive to replace the population with 2.3 kids per family.
My family is relentlessly white. At Brexit time my son said to me Shit! I know 18 mainland Europeans. Am I going to lose all my friends? One of my closest friends is Austrian and works as an IT manager in a German Waste to Power company in Plymouth. Fortunately she was deemed useful enough for indefinite leave to stay. Through her I have become aware of dozens of others similarly living and working locally (deepest, darkest Devon). All useful members of society ( and white). We are so privileged.
I'm guessing some (probably most) of that 9,000,000 are pensioners. Because the benefits system included the state pension.
No. There are 12 M pensioners in addition to pension isn’t a benefit it’s a right paid for by recipients.
This is the most accurate opinion that I have read in a long time about colonisation. From 1946 to 1956 I lived in what was the former German Colony of Tanganyika and in the British colony of Kenya close to the border with Uganda. I witnessed the terrible violence of the May May financed by China which brought out the worst human behaviour on both sides. Stable democratic government has not yet been established in all former British colonies and many of the immigrants coming to this country invited to work or as refugees should be able to receive our considerable help. They generally have an amazing work ethic, often because they need more than one paid job to meet their living costs. The first man I heard using the colonisation insult was Trump in reference to the UK and Europe. Reform political candidates have picked that up and I even heard it repeated several times on the BBC news last night. The utter ignorance of such people deserves to be called out and criticised for the racial prejudice it represents. If it was justified one would have to ignore the real evidence that the sons and daughters of such immigrants form the backbone of our medical and public services. Where is the white man's superiority in that? My own family were illegal migrants nearly a thousand years ago and we are so interbred that we are indistinguishable from native Anglo Saxons except perhaps for our long noses.
Mau Mau not May May - auto text can be maddening!!!!!!!
You are of course, completely correct about the term 'colonisation'. Unfortunately, now it has been used by such a well-known public figure, and his supporters will not comprehend the correct meaning, the term is sure to used and weaponised by the likes of Reform.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed David, Reform always jumps on everyone else’s bandwagon and never has an original idea. Always regurgitating Trump, Bannon, Putin, Radcliffe or any other right winger.
Absolutely Bear, it was a disgraceful comment, and the thoughts of a Football Team he has financial interest in, relying on the skills of many overseas players makes it even more galling to read imho.
Ratcliffe demonstrates his allegiance to the Epstein Class. He’s clearly a fully paid up member.
This is the way to tackle these billionaires imho. Call them members of the Epstein Class and let’s start defining this group of uber-rich men who are out of control and causing huge damage
The newly released Epstein files are teaching us a lot about what the American oligarchs and their European counterparts think of race, gender and colonialism. And it runs deep - it’s not just Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and their overt Apartheid-era white supremacy. Spoiler : racial pseudoscience is back. As is misogyny disguised as pseudogenetics.
Many of them have internalised the great replacement conspiracy theory.
Jim Ratcliffe is not an outlier: he’s typical of his class.
Bear, thanks - its important that people understand what is being said and indeed what British Colonial rule was - warts and all. However I think that Ratcliffe's comments are 'loaded' he is clearly trying to tip things back towards Reform - as he see's that as the best business opportunity for him and the other billionaires he hangs around with.
They can use the denigration of immigrants as a device (and its been done before time and time again) and then when the far right have power - what will they do - give hand outs to their mates' businesses (see Grangemouth); give contracts - say supplying products to the NHS and of course big tax cuts - all in the name of attracting jobs and investment - which incidentially never appear.
There is no accident here - its quite deliberate. His mistake is that he owns Man U and that has forced him to be contrite.
Thanks, Bear!
Yep, Jim Ratcliffe is very deliberately employing loaded - as in dice - language to get the knee-jerk emotive reaction/result from his target audience.
That audience, I would suggest, being the RefUKKKer-literal as opposed to those we have come to recognise, all too often over the decades, as 'big on flags, hard of thinking'.
A few years ago they were UKIP, BNP, NF (!), BM, LEL, NSM, BU, BUF and several other alphabetti-spaghetti dis-Organisations, all coming out with similar populist, weaponised intolerance of 'Them' - and ANY 'Them' will do! - all based in the fear of somehow losing umm...SOMETHING! That something is rarely specified, but when it is, it even more rarely stands up to scrutiny.
The fact that this fear is predominantly based on feelings makes it tricky to counter, something that the charlatans (NF, Stinky Don, Tindall, Verrall, LePen etc) know and utilise again and again and again.
'Colonisation' is a 'bomb in the brain' word for them. It conjures up a lot of reactions simultaneously and so needs to be deconstructed rationally, which takes both time and the presence of the necessary critical apparatus and skills.
Without those being present, the word becomes a trigger, a dog whistle, if you like.
Jim Ratcliffe knows this, too.
If anything, us peasants in most countries - rather than the countries per se - are being colonised by rich bastards such as him.
The 'oligarchs', the 'super rich', the 'Tech Bros', the 'military/industrial/media complex' need to exploit and extract from something and that something is us!
The East India Company model has come home to roost, as it was always going to, I suppose.
What Michael Hudson has called the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) economy is in place. It contributes as little as possible whilst extracting as much as possible: it is not even symbiotic, it is parasitic.
And we, the little people, are the host.
Sorry, that should have read *'RefUKKKer-lite' rather than '-literal'. Bloody autocorrect!
Yesssssssss! Agree 100%. thank you expressing my thoughts in a far more eloquent way than I could have done.
Perfect today, Bear!
I always think of Satnam Sanghera's phrase "We're over here because you were over there". Can't be said too often. And all those people he's insulted (at the least), all paying their taxes, unlike him. Would love to see all the foreign-born Man Utd players put in transfer requests. If that's what my boss thought of me, I certainly would.
Pieces of sh*t like “sir” Jim Ratcliffe should remember they’re immigrants in another country and stop throwing stones from their glasshouse! One of them might just get thrown back!
Well done, Bear! You nailed it perfectly. As someone from the subcontinent where the British colonised us for over 200 years, I can relate to what actual colonisation looks like. Thank you for this 🙌
Ratcliffe is used to going unchallenged because of his vast wealth.
His (non) apology illustrates this. There is a strand of behaviour in society that automatically validates the opinions of the wealthy and their interests.
To the detriment of the rest of us.
100% all of this 👏👏👏
He comes out with this monologue of tripe after a meeting with a certain political ‘company’ member and the two aren’t connected🤮
His use of dubious statistics and claims, amplified by the Clacton Klaxon that are misleading and plain wrong,
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25850401.fact-checked-every-nigel-farage-claim-jim-ratcliffe-video/
No mention was made in his diatribe of a certain political ‘company’ attempting to ‘colonise’ the Welsh synod this coming May….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0kkzy54r9zo
No mention of a certain political ‘company’ that welcomes wealthy tax exiles…
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/03/20/nigel-farages-reform-uk-funded-by-tax-haven-linked-firms-as-party-seeks-tax-exile-donors/
No mention of a certain political ‘company’ that is funded heavily by colonialists in distant lands
Connected to warmongers
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/12/16/nigel-farages-9m-donor-profits-from-putin-propaganda-platform-while-holding-mod-stake/
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Thank you again so perfectly expressed . My vocabulary when I heard that awful emigrant using totally wrong language and utterly inaccurate statistics was far less measured .
Colonisation was used deliberately to enrage the far-right in the country. I have no idea on his voting record but I'll put money on Ratcliffe was right wing Tory and now a far-right Reformer. What can't and shouldn't be ignored is the fact Ratcliffe does this whilst living as a tax exile in Monaco.
Ratcliffe should apologise to the trees for stealing the oxygen they produce.