There’s little surprise that Ratcliffe and Farage harbour respect for each other. As well as both loathing immigration, Reform's top donors use similar offshore arrangements, 75% of their funding comes from just three mega wealthy men with offshore ties.

When Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Monaco-based billionaire and co-owner of Manchester United, pronounces that Britain is being “colonised by immigrants,” it’s worth asking not only what he means, but what influence men like him wield over the country they no longer fiscally support.

His remarks came just as parliament began considering one of the most significant reforms to Britain’s electoral system in years.

A long-overdue clean-up, but is it enough?

On February 12, MPs gave a first reading to the Representation of the People Bill, landmark legislation designed to reform how elections operate. While headlines focused on extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds, a provision that aims to tighten the rules around political donations gained less attention.

The bill would block companies from donating to political parties unless they have genuine British ownership or generate sufficient revenue in the UK. That change could prevent overseas billionaires from funnelling money into British politics through UK subsidiaries, a route that, until now, has remained open. It aims to stop foreign companies offering high-value gifts to MPs, who will not be able to accept them unless they are below £2,230. There will be no cap on donations by eligible individuals and corporations.

Given that in late 2024 Nigel Farage suggested that tech billionaire Elon Musk was giving “serious thought” to donating up to £100 million to Reform UK, a donation that could have been legal under existing rules, the new legislation can’t come soon enough.

Local government secretary Steve Reed, described the bill as ushering in “a new era for our democracy – one that protects against foreign interference and empowers young people.”

But does it go far enough?

The mega-donor problem

Anti-corruption campaigners argue it doesn’t. Transparency International UK has welcomed the closure of shell-company loopholes but warns that without caps on individual donations, the outsized influence of mega-donors will persist.

Its research found that 66 percent of private political donations in 2023 came from just 19 individuals. Meanwhile in the 2024 general election, parties collectively spent a record £92 million, highlighting the ever-increasing reliance of mega donors on election campaigns.

Duncan Hames of Transparency International UK argues this must change: “MPs now have a choice: settle for half-measures or use this bill to set a meaningful cap on individual donations, reduce campaign spending limits, and fully restore the independence of the Electoral Commission. If the government is serious about restoring trust, this is the moment to prove it.” 

Without those changes, the super-rich can still legally purchase disproportionate access and influence. Prem Sikka, Labour member of the House of Lords makes such warnings. In a column for Left Foot Forward, he warns the new bill merely tweaks the current system and that it regularises bribes disguised as political donations.

“… political donations enable the super-rich to buy access to policymakers and shape public policies. Their interests are prioritised. The consequences for the rest are dire.

“Some of the reforms are welcome but they won’t end political corruption. The super-rich would continue to buy political influence.”

Tax exiles with political voice

The timing of the new bill is pertinent. Failsworth-born Jim Ratcliffe, whose fortune was built through his chemicals giant INEOS, moved his tax residence to Monaco in 2020. Residents in the tax haven city state don’t have to pay any income or property taxes. The decision is expected to make him £4 billion in tax savings. Once among Britain’s largest taxpayers, he no longer appears on tax contribution lists, though his wealth, estimated at around £17 billion, keeps him near the top of rich lists.

Compare Ratcliffe’s £0 in personal income tax in the UK to skilled worker migrants, who pay a median of around £9,100 a year in income tax, while health and care workers pay a median of roughly £3,500, according to government PAYE figures, These figures exclude national insurance, council tax, VAT and other levies, meaning total tax contributions are even higher. 

“Immigrants are contributing much more to the economy than Jim Ratcliffe,” said Ala Sirriyeh, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Lancaster. “And so, I would just say: get your house in order before you start commenting on other people’s contributions.”

To rub salt in the wound, just weeks before his inflammatory immigration comments, during which is also falsely claimed  the UK’s population had grown by 12 million since 2020, Ratcliffe secured £120 million in UK state support for INEOS operations.

His remarks were widely condemned. Outside Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, a billboard reads:

“Immigrants have done more for this city than billionaire tax dodgers ever will.”

Fans scarcely need reminding that without its foreign-born players, United’s starting eleven, and even its bench, would be threadbare. The global character of the game is obvious on the pitch every week. Why it appears not to be so to its billionaire co-owner is harder to understand or to reconcile with his anti-immigrant rant.

Predictably, Ratcliffe has also expressed admiration for Farage, describing him as “an intelligent man” with “good intentions.” Farage returned the regard, insisting that “Jim Ratcliffe is right” and repeating claims about immigration and public services to his 497,000 YouTube subscribers.

“And then you look at parts of London, for example, where the road names, the Underground signs, aren’t just in English, they’re in a foreign language as well. One million people in this country don’t speak any English at all, four million people living in this country barely speak passable English,” he said, adding:

“And that’s the point that he [Ratcliffe] was making – that big areas of our towns and cities have been changed into something completely different from what they were. And I don’t really care if Number 10 is in uproar or if much of mainstream media find his comments too difficult – I believe, firmly, that Jim Ratcliffe is right.”

This is how influence operates in modern politics.

The Populist Decoder offers a brilliant analysis of the danger of all this, arguing that “Ratcliffe’s colonised” framing isn’t accidental. It’s the great replacement narrative dressed in establishment respectability. When a £29bn fortune and a Manchester United owner says it, suddenly it’s not fringe conspiracy, it’s “legitimate concern” about demographic change.

“Farage’s defence completes the laundering: acknowledge the language was “clumsy,” then insist the substance was “fundamentally right.” This is textbook populist legitimisation—use an elite figure to test inflammatory rhetoric, then amplify it whilst maintaining plausible deniability through the “just raising concerns” shield.””

Offshore money and party funding

Then again, there’s little surprise that Ratcliffe and Farage harbour respect for each other. As well as both loathing immigration, Reform’s top donors use similar offshore arrangements, 75% of their funding comes from just three mega wealthy men with offshore ties.

A report from the Good Law Project shows, the largest portion of this comes from the British technology investor Christopher Harbourne, who lives in Thailand and has donated £13.7m to Reform.

A huge chunk of donations has also come from Jeremy Hosking, co-founder of Marathon Asset Management, who has given Reform £2.4m. The company has a subsidiary based in the Cayman Islands and is ultimately controlled by a firm based in Jersey. 

And then there’s Richard Tice, a property tycoon and deputy leader of Reform UK, worth a reported £40 million. According to the Good Law Project, Tice as put millions of pounds worth of shares in his property empire into an offshore account. So much for his pledge to “take back control of our money.”

But this pattern is not new. A 2019 investigation by the Times found that the Conservative Party had received over £1 million before the 2017 general election from Britons based in tax havens or their UK-registered companies. Donors included Belize-based peer Michael Ashcroft, Monaco-resident property magnates David Reuben and Simon Reuben, and Michael Platt, Britain’s wealthiest hedge fund boss, who has lived in Switzerland and Jersey during this time.

Campaigning costs money. But surely a democracy cannot thrive if political competition depends on cultivating a handful of ultra-wealthy patrons, particularly those who have structured their affairs to minimise their own contribution to the public purse.

Half-measure or turning point?

The Representation of the People Bill is a step forward. Closing shell-company loopholes matters. Preventing foreign money from being laundered through UK subsidiaries matters.

Yet without caps on donations, tighter spending limits, and stronger oversight, Britain risks entrenching a system where politics is shaped not by citizens collectively, but by billionaires individually.

As Electoral Reform wrote in response to the Times’ report: “Now, no one denies that campaigning costs money. But politicians need to show some respect to their own profession by having an open and transparent funding regime: one which allows them to focus on their policy differences – not who has the largest number of rich friends based in tax havens.”

Which brings us back to Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

When those who have relocated their tax base abroad retain both a megaphone and the means to influence domestic politics, reform cannot stop at technical fixes. If the government is serious about restoring trust, it must ensure that political power in Britain flows from voters, not from offshore fortunes.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

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