Ineos founder Ratcliffe says the UK economy is on the slide

Jim Ratcliffe has told the BBC he has lost confidence in Britain and described the country as on the slide.

The Ineos founder, whose wealth is estimated at around £15 billion, blamed a combination of high taxes and high immigration. He said he would return only if things got better.

He left in 2020. Ratcliffe has been a tax resident of Monaco since then, having campaigned for Brexit, and he owns a substantial stake in Manchester United.

Others have followed him out. The steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal left Britain last year for Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates after three decades there, and the hedge fund manager Chris Rokos, who paid £330 million in tax last year and was the country’s third-biggest taxpayer, is moving to Greece. Nassef Sawiris, Africa’s wealthiest Egyptian, left before either of them.

Ratcliffe attributed it to resentment. In America they applaud people who create wealth, he said, and the United Kingdom has a bit of a green eye towards wealth at the moment.

Most of his criticism concerned energy policy.

Ineos operates the Forties pipeline, which carries about 30% of Britain’s North Sea oil, and Ratcliffe called the failure to invest further in North Sea production insanity. He said taxing everybody to death means they all leave, and that is what is happening.

The tax on North Sea profits is being reformed but the changes will not be fully in place until 2030.

He also warned that Britain could run out of gas. If there is a really sharp cold spell, he said, there is conceivably a possibility of running out and having to switch industry off, because storage is not full.

The numbers are lower than usual. European gas storage stands at about 69% against a typical 85% for this point in the year, according to Cornwall Insight, though Adam Bell of the consultancy Stonehaven said the physical risk of running short is relatively low and the main uncertainty is American policy on liquefied natural gas exports.

The government rejected the warning. A spokesperson said Britain has a diverse energy mix and is confident in its security of supply, that it is working to deliver growth, and that business investment has risen over the past two years.

Two decisions are outstanding. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised a pragmatic approach to oil and gas, and his government has yet to rule on whether to approve further development at the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields. Ratcliffe criticised the delay and called it absurd to import more energy than necessary.

The government said oil and gas will matter in Britain for decades to come, while arguing that the transition to home-grown clean power is the only route to energy and financial security.

He was speaking in Denmark, where Ineos has invested in the European Union’s first carbon capture and storage system. Carbon collected across the country arrives at Esbjerg in tanks, is pumped into a vessel named Carbon Destroyer 1 and injected into a depleted oil field almost 200 miles offshore.

He said he had wanted to build the same thing in Britain and could not get enough government support. The energy department said it has committed £21.7 billion to carbon capture over 25 years, and no British project is yet operating.

His complaints extend beyond energy. Ratcliffe said the country had once been a fantastic place, cited the empire and two world wars, and said immigration and welfare spending are both too high while nobody is tough enough to deal with either.

He said earlier this year that Britain had been colonised by immigrants, and later apologised for offending some people.