Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe claims UK has been 'colonised by immigrants'

Ratcliffe, who sacked vast swathes of Manchester United employees upon taking over the club, hit out at the number of people on benefits as he warned Britain faces an economic and political crisis.

"You can't have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in," he told Sky News.

"I mean, the UK has been colonised. It's costing too much money.

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"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."

These numbers are incorrect; Britain’s population was 67 million in 2020, according to the Office of National Statistics.

The last time 58 million people lived in Britain was the year 2000.

Taking aim at the Prime Minister, he added: "I don't know whether it's just the apparatus that hasn't allowed Keir to do it or, or he's maybe too nice - I mean, Keir is a nice man.

“I like him, but it's a tough job and I think you have to do some difficult things with the UK to get it back on track, because at the moment I don't think the economy is in a good state."

When pressed on Nigel Farage’s Downing Street hopes, the INEOS founder said: "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."

He compared running the country to running Manchester United, who had their lowest-ever Premier League finish last season.

"I've seen quite a bit of this at the football club,” he said.

“If you do difficult things, which we felt that we had to do at Manchester United... we felt like they were the right things to do. But you do become very unpopular for a while."

"Well, I've been very unpopular at Manchester United because we've made lots of changes. But for the better, in my view. And I think we're beginning to see some evidence in the football club that that's beginning to pay off.

"But you've got all the same issues with the country. If you really want to deal with the major issues of immigration, with people opting to take benefits rather than working for a living, if you want to deal with that, then you're going to have to do some things which are unpopular, and show some courage."