CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

People Turn to Poison Quick

Photo by Nat Callaghan

As the Buzzcocks sang in Ever Fallen in Love, “You spurn my natural emotions…” But I’m not talking romance here. I’m talking the spurning of a city’s plural identity.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire founder of the Ineos chemicals group and co-owner of Manchester United—worth over £17 billion, and reckoned to be the seventh richest man in the country—has caused controversy after remarks made in a Sky News business interview.

Ratcliffe claimed the UK had been “colonised by immigrants,” suggesting, with a sideways glance and raised eyebrow, that immigration and high levels of welfare dependency were placing strain on the economy. He even cited population figures that do not appear to match official statistics.

The reaction was swift. Even some supporters admitted the figures and dates were wrong. Keir Starmer described the language as “offensive and wrong,” calling for an apology and emphasising that Britain is a diverse and tolerant country. Ratcliffe has since apologised for offending “some people.” Manchester United supporters’ groups condemned the comments as embarrassing and divisive.

You could almost hear that Manchester refrain: “How does it feel?”—not triumph, not Dylan, but the question New Order keep raising beneath the long groove of Blue Monday.

Anti-racism organisations warned that the rhetoric echoed accounts more commonly associated with the far right. Contrarian commentators like Brendan O’Neill argued instead that attention should be directed toward crimes committed by illegal migrants, citing the conviction of an Afghan man who raped a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton.

But one reason the story travelled so quickly was the irony at its centre. Ratcliffe has lived in Monaco........

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