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The England captain Maro Itoje has piled into the ruck surrounding Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s comments about immigration, dismissing the Manchester United co-owner’s views as “ridiculous”. Itoje, whose parents both came to Britain from Nigeria, has criticised the phrasing and accuracy of Ratcliffe’s remarks.
Itoje, who recently missed the start of England’s pre-Six Nations training camp to attend his mother’s funeral in Nigeria, did not hold back when asked about Ratcliffe’s opinion on the eve of his side’s Calcutta Cup showdown at Murrayfield. “Obviously I don’t condone the language he used,” said Itoje.
“I was born in this country of Nigerian descent and I think it’s ridiculous to say Great Britain has been colonised by immigrants because that is so far from the truth. I think it’s wrong.” Itoje acknowledged that Ratcliffe has since sought to clarify his words – “If I’ve read correctly he has apologised for his comments” – but the 31-year-old clearly remains seriously unimpressed.
Ratcliffe, Britain’s seventh-richest man, sparked the controversy in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, in which he questioned the number of people receiving state support and relocating to the UK from abroad, saying: “You can’t afford … you can’t have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in. The UK is being colonised by immigrants, really, isn’t it?”
The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has said Ratcliffe, who relocated to tax-free Monaco in 2020, should apologise and the Football Association are looking into whether the billionaire petrochemical executive has brought the game into disrepute. Ratcliffe subsequently said he was sorry his “choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe”.
The furore has certainly irked Itoje, who has a degree in politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and is also still dealing with the shock – “It’s been very up and down” – of losing his mother, Florence, who moved to England from Nigeria with her husband in the early 1990s and initially ran a butcher’s shop in north London.
“Going for the burial in Nigeria was deeply emotional but at the same time, there was a sense of peace that we found. It felt right. Grief looks different for different people but it’s definitely been a journey and with time I’m sure it will get easier.”
There remains intense family pride that Itoje leads an England side on a 12-Test winning streak. “It’s been great to be back with England; it’s one of the things my mum loved. I don’t come from a traditional rugby family but my parents became rugby people through and through. She always loved the fact that I was a representative of this team.”
