Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Loves Brexit... so why’s he moving to Monaco?
Richest fatcat quits UK for tax haven
The Brits are perfectly capable of managing the Brits and don’t need Brussels telling them how to manage things
THIS YEAR IN INTERVIEW EARLIER
BRITAIN’S richest man is leaving the UK – despite being a leading Brexit supporter.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, worth £21billion, is upping sticks and moving to the tax haven of Monaco, reports say.
The 65-year-old, who founded petrochemical giant INEOS, has previously said the UK can thrive outside the European Union.
In an interview earlier this year, he boasted:
“The Brits are perfectly capable of managing the Brits and don’t need Brussels telling them how to manage things.
“I just don’t believe in the concept of a
United States of Europe.
It’s not viable.”
He refused to give the reasons for his move. However, it comes just months after the joiner’s son, who grew up in a council house in Failsworth, Greater Manchester, topped the Sunday Times Rich List. He leapt from 18th last year after complaining £15.3billion was an underestimate of his wealth. INEOS refused to comment
on Sir Jim’s personal plans. It insisted the company was “committed to its business base in London”.
But the firm moved its HQ to Switzerland in 2010 to save an estimated £317million in tax over four years. INEOS announced its return in 2016, with Sir Jim declaring: “We are Brits aren’t we? It’s where we started and it’s where our hearts lie.”
Sir Jim was recently knighted for services to business and investment. But the tycoon has had bitter run-ins with his workers. In 2016 he threatened to shut down his firm’s Grangemouth plant in Scotland unless staff accepted a pay freeze. Union bosses had to accept a “survival plan” for the site amid the threat of closure and loss of 800 jobs. News of Sir Jim’s move came after it emerged former Tory Chancellor Lord Lawson, ex-chairman of the Vote Leave campaign, has applied for his French residency card.
Labour MEP Theresa Griffin said of Sir Jim’s plans: “So the wealthy are leaving or setting up subsidiaries elsewhere. What about the millions that can’t do this?”
If Sir Jim left, the richest people in Britain would be industrialist brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja, worth £20.64billion.