𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Keir Starmer pitched himself as a working class warrior this week but a billionaire tax exile showed he is more in touch with ordinary voters. Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe caused uproar when he claimed the UK had been “colonised by immigrants” in a television interview.

He claimed, incorrectly, that the population had risen by 12 million to 70 million people in the last five years when the increase is actually nearer three million. “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. The UK has been colonised by immigrants, really, hasn’t it?”

Ratcliffe got his figures wrong and used blunt language, which was a gift to his critics, of which Starmer, naturally, was one. It gave them an easy line of attack. Throw in the fact he is loaded and he lives in Monaco and job done, he’s a new super villain.

But the row says more about the state of our country than any political argy-bargy in parliament. The Prime Minister tweeted that the comments were “offensive and wrong”.

“Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country,” he added. “Jim Ratcliffe should apologise.” This is the same Keir Starmer who only a year ago warned Britain was in danger of becoming an “island of strangers”.

Now he is Prime Minister in name only and a hostage to the Left of his party so immediately waded in to keep them onside. Commentators talked about how Ratcliffe’s PR team must have had their heads in their hands after the interview.

Manchester United’s executives distanced themselves from the part owner with a statement from the club saying it remains “deeply committed” to “equality, diversity and inclusion”.

But what many people saw was a man saying what he actually thought, rather than parroting bland statements signed off by a committee of brand managers.

The figures might be wrong, but demographic change in the UK has been rapid and deep. Equally, the language may be clumsy but the shifting culture in many towns and cities has been very real to the people actually living in them.

A Centre for Policy Studies report released in November found that Britain experienced population growth and churn between 2021 and 2024 “on a scale that it is hard to find a historical equivalent for”. After analysing official figures, the CPS said that around one in 25 people currently living in the country arrived during that period and the foreign-born population was now close to 20%.

Karl Williams, director of research at the CPS, said: “This new data shows just how significant recent population change has been. The combined effect of record inflows and the sharp rise in emigration has reshaped the country far more quickly than most people realise. If decisions on housing, public services and local funding are to keep pace with these shifts, we need a precise and up-to-date picture of the population.”

Limited and controlled migration of men and women who come to Britain because they love the country and share its values is a great bonus for our tolerant nation. There are many high-profile figures across many different fields who embody that notion and many people away from the spotlight who do too.

But Ratcliffe’s comments were clearly in relation to groups who fail to integrate into the community, exploit grievance culture and rely on the benefit system.

No government has been elected on a manifesto promising high levels of legal migration. No one voted for this scale of demographic change. There is no mandate for it. It has happened in the background without any endorsement by electors at the ballot box. And it is working class voters in former industrial towns who are the ones who experience the change most.

After managing to hang on to his job this week, Starmer is now focusing on tackling the “class divide” and again claimed to come from a working class background.

But he does not listen to working class concerns and never has. That’s why red wall voters have turned away from him in droves. Reform’s core message has been a promise to tackle migration, legal and illegal.

Its support is highest among manual workers at 39% while Labour’s support is highest among the managerial and professional classes, according to YouGov analysis last month.

Ratcliffe might be a (self-made) billionaire but he raised the concerns of ordinary voters that Starmer just refuses to hear.