The British media space is resonating with an interview given by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe to the television channel Sky News. In this interview, he literally said: “You cannot have an economy where nine million people are on benefits and at the same time huge numbers of immigrants are coming in. Britain is being colonised. It costs too much money. The United Kingdom has been colonised by immigrants.” According to him, Britain is therefore “colonised by immigrants” who “drain the state’s resources.” Ratcliffe then continued: “The population of the United Kingdom was fifty‑eight million in 2020. Now it’s seventy million. That’s twelve million people.”
Who is Jim Ratcliffe
Before diving into a more detailed fact‑check of Ratcliffe’s claims, let me briefly outline who he is. Jim Ratcliffe is a British billionaire and the founder of the chemical giant INEOS. He is among the richest Britons and owns stakes in several sports clubs, including Manchester United. His wealth is estimated at £40 billion. He has long been known for his strong views on the economy, migration, and the role of the state. He was highly visible during the Brexit era, supporting the UK’s departure from the EU and publicly arguing that Britain would be more flexible and competitive outside the Union. Yet immediately after the 2016 referendum, he moved his tax residency from the United Kingdom to Monaco and located some manufacturing projects in the EU or the USA — which was already an early indicator of Ratcliffe’s hypocrisy, so typical of many pro‑Brexit businesspeople and politicians.
Fact‑checking: 9 million people “on benefits”
No, the UK does not have 9 million people “on benefits” in the sense of economically inactive individuals living off social support. Universal Credit has 8.6 million recipients, but this also includes people in work with low incomes, parental benefits, carers, the sick, and people in transitional situations. The total number of people receiving some form of benefit cannot simply be added up, and it certainly does not mean 9 million unemployed — and it absolutely cannot be applied to migrants. Unemployment benefits, for example, are claimed by fewer than 100,000 people (source: Department for Work and Pensions and the Office for National Statistics). If we look at spending on non‑pension benefits (working‑age population) as a percentage of GDP in the United Kingdom, it stands at 3.7% of GDP. That is the European average. In Scandinavia it is 4–6%, in Germany 4%, in France 4–5% (source: OECD).
Fact‑checking: the alleged 12‑million population increase
No, in 2020 the population of the United Kingdom was not 58 million people, but 66.7 million. According to the latest complete data, the population in 2023 was 67.7 million. Estimates for 2025 place it at around 68.1 million (source: Office for National Statistics). The population increase over the past five years is therefore not 12 million, as Ratcliffe claims, but at most 1,5 million.
Why Ratcliffe manipulates the numbers
Jim Ratcliffe knows very well that dramatic numbers work as a political weapon, and that is precisely why he uses claims that diverge from reality by millions of people. When he exaggerates population growth or the number of people on benefits, he does not create an image of the country’s real situation — he artificially generates a sense of threat that can easily be turned into simple slogans about “colonisation.” It is deliberate manipulation, made all the more problematic because it comes from a man who chose to move his tax residency to Monaco to avoid contributing to the very system whose supposed collapse he so eagerly comments on. In my view, Britain does not need fewer people who work here, pay taxes, and keep the economy afloat — it needs fewer billionaires who bend facts, divide society, and stand outside the very rules they demand from everyone else.