Has racism been normalised in the immigration debate?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jim Ratcliffe, the part owner of Manchester United, multi-billionaire and Monaco based non dom, has taken the government to task for allowing immigrants to “colonise“ the U.K. Does he realise he’s using a far right trope? Have we become immune to racism in the immigration debate? And why did a successful businessman not even check his facts on the numbers?
Later - why has a foreign office civil servant lashed out at the woman primed to become Keir Starmer’s cabinet secretary? Does he know something we don’t or is this the “boys club” mentality in action?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.5 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.9 | I mean, I know Kear, he's a nice man. I like him. |
| 0:16.7 | But it's a tough job. |
| 0:20.5 | And I think you have to do some difficult things with the UK to get it back on track. |
| 0:24.1 | Because at the moment, I don't think the economy is in a good... |
| 0:27.1 | You can't afford... You can't have an economy with 9 million people on benefits |
| 0:32.0 | and huge levels of immigrants coming in... |
| 0:36.8 | I mean, the UK's being colonised. |
| 0:39.0 | It's costing too much money. |
| 0:40.3 | It will cause, it'll cause, well, we mean, yeah. |
| 0:44.9 | The UK's being colonised by immigrants, really, isn't it? |
| 0:47.6 | That is Jim Ratcliffe. |
| 0:49.3 | He's the face of the Manchester United Board, |
| 0:53.1 | describing the UK as colonised. Is he wrong? Is he racist? Or is he just |
| 1:00.0 | deeply out of his depth? This follows a trend that we've seen from those at the top of politics |
| 1:06.4 | and beyond to use language and terms and ideas that will once the preserve of the far right |
| 1:13.2 | and the way that they spoke about immigration. Is that now in 2026 the new normal? Welcome to the |
| 1:21.4 | newsagents. |
| 1:28.4 | It's Lewis. |
| 1:29.1 | It's Emily. |
| 1:29.8 | And as Emily was saying, this is Sir Jim Rackcliffe. |
... |
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