Son-in-law of former United player is among 1,100 fans forced to give up prime seats under cash-boosting plans

A Manchester United fan said he feels “helpless and hopeless” after being evicted from the seat his family have held since just after the second world war to make way for £300-a-head VIPs.

Tony Riley, whose father-in-law played for United under Sir Matt Busby, is among 1,100 supporters forced to move under cash-boosting plans overseen by Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

• Ben Ainslie and Ineos ended partnership last year

• Statement says boat used in 2024 ‘belongs to Ineos’

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Group is taking legal action against Sir Ben Ainslie over the boat built for the 2024 America’s Cup.

Ratcliffe and Ainslie worked closely together across two cycles of the famous sailing competition, culminating in a historic but ultimately unsuccessful challenge for the title 18 months ago.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe among more than 100 signatories to letter urging PM not to get drawn further into the conflict

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among three of Iran’s former political prisoners and more than 100 Iranians living in the UK who have urged the British prime minister not to get drawn further into the Iran conflict.

They are all signatories in a letter to Keir Starmer saying the way the war is being conducted is strengthening the regime in Tehran.

Manchester United co-owner reminded of his responsibilities in media interviews as Carrick backs club’s culture of respect

The deregulation agenda being pushed by Germany’s chancellor and Italy’s prime minister is economically and ethically flawed

When the European Union launched its green deal in 2019, putting into law the goal of climate neutrality by the middle of the century, it showed strategic foresight as well as global leadership. Russia’s war in Ukraine has starkly underlined the extent to which the continent’s energy security – and its future prosperity – is dependent on the transition away from fossil fuels. Lately, however, EU leaders’ environmental approach appears to be echoing the youthful St Augustine’s plea on chastity: make us greener, but not yet.

The recent European Industry Summit in Antwerp made unusually big headlines thanks to Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s xenophobic outburst over immigration. But it was also notable for fierce attacks on one of the most important pillars of EU environmental policy. The bloc’s emissions trading system (ETS) – which makes polluters pay for the C02 they emit – has achieved dramatic results in driving down overall emissions since 2005 and encouraging green innovation. Worryingly, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, appeared to sympathise with demands from Sir Jim and other CEOs for a radical relaxation of the rules.

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What made the Manchester United co-owner’s anti-immigrant screed so revolting was his brazen willingness to say it all out loud. Remind you of anyone?

Did British petrochemicals billionaire and Manchester United’s controlling minority owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, really mean it when he proclaimed to Sky News that “the UK is being colonized by immigrants”?

Is Ratcliffe simply a gutter racist or actually making a cynical political play that may redound to his benefit down the line when Britain faces down yet another period of political upheaval as the country’s old factions continue to fracture? There’s reasonable debate to be had there.

Our cartoonist reflects on the Manchester United co-owner’s recent statements and electioneering, via the prism of Cracker’s DCI Bilborough

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He fused an echo of Enoch Powell with the spirit of the far right’s great replacement theory. This is no way to progress a humane migration debate

Has Britain been colonised by immigrants? That is what the Manchester United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe claimed in an interview with Sky News. He later said that he was sorry that his “choice of language has offended some people”, saying that what he had intended was to talk about how to control and manage immigration to promote growth.

While Ratcliffe did not define the immigrants by race, to talk about Britain being “colonised” will inevitably be heard that way by many people. After all, the fact that Britain is a multiethnic and multifaith society today reflects the imperial and post-imperial history of Britain colonising much of Africa, and south and south-east Asia – and of postwar immigration from colonies and newly independent Commonwealth states.

Sunder Katwala is director of British Future

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• ‘Society is better when we embrace other cultures’

• Haaland doubt for FA Cup tie, Rodri charged by FA

Pep Guardiola has said that blaming people from overseas for a country’s problems is wrong, the Manchester City manager’s comments coming amid the fallout of Sir Jim Ratcliffe claiming the United Kingdom is being “colonised by immigrants”.

Ratcliffe’s comment, made in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, has led to widespread condemnation, including from within football, leading to Manchester United’s single largest minority owner saying he was sorry that his “choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe”.

Comments on the ‘colonisation of the UK’ by the co-owner of Manchester United were erroneous, crass and a gift to divisive forces in British society

In 2020, the year Sir Jim Ratcliffe moved his huge fortune to Monaco, migrants in the United Kingdom made tax contributions estimated to be worth around £20bn. Sir Jim, by jetting off to a tax haven on the French Riviera, saved himself an estimated £4bn. It took some brass neck for the expat owner of Ineos and co-owner of Manchester United football club to lecture the country, using inflammatory and offensive language, on the perils of immigration.

Where to begin? The statistics used by Sir Jim to back his claim that Britain was being “colonised” by migrants, in an interview with Sky News, were flatly wrong. They were also astonishingly crass, coming from a man who presides over a sporting institution famous for and proud of its global fanbase and international connections.

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Tax exile has already proven himself a terrible club owner; now his ill-informed diatribe about immigration has poured fuel on wider flames

Well I, for one, am shocked. Shocked to learn that a tax-exiled English expat who made his billions squeezing chemical plants doesn’t have liberal, let alone accurate, views on immigration. Or at least, in public anyway.

It seems highly likely Sir Jim Ratcliffe knew what he was doing in the course of his now semi-recanted Sky News interview. And it is above all vital that at least one part of his empire of influence – football, sport, Manchester United – rejects it, as the club have done to some extent in their statement.