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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think leaving UK is the best Option now

260 replies

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 10:51

We are thinking of leaving UK now to move to Dubai or USA. We have two young children who are in nursery, not in School yet and one will start school next year.
The reasons are the state of UK. Looking at the state of NHS, the waits are so long if you ever have to go to A&E, you can access better healthcare of you have insurance in any other country. Another reason is the ever increasing tax, we both work full time and I have the potential to earn six figures but I am staying at a flexible job to earn under 6 figures and I am forced to not get a promotion or switching to High paying jobs by the fact that I won't be eligible for 30 funded hours of Childcare which I I think is very unfair on hard working people who want to progress in career while having young children. UK doesn't feels like a family friendly country overall.
We also don't feel safe now going out to city centre etc which have become a ghost town and so much of illegal immigrants loitering around and so much increase in crimes.
Our friends who moved to Dubai are able to afford full time house help, nanny and a driver while earning similar to ourselves. While, here we are struggling with young kids and paying huge taxes. I have family in USA who are earning big bucks and paying much less taxes and being able to save and invest better for retirement while we will be working till 68 potentially 70 which is totally insane.
AIBU to feel leaving UK is the best option now and have you made a move or considering moving?

OP posts:
MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 17/03/2025 12:11

So, when are you off, OP?

The sooner we're rid of people with attitudes like yours, the better in my view. So I'm cheering you on and wishing you all the best for your new life in your overseas utopia.

CleverButScatty · 17/03/2025 12:11

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 11:34

Many posters are mocking me when I stated about dodgy looking men who are illegal immigrants. Two of the biggest hotels in our city centre have been used by home office to house the illegal immigrants coming on boats. This was in the news and has been opposed by residents but councils aren't able to do anything. Now, you see most of them hanging around in the city centre. This is in west midlands. You can mock people for stating the truth until it comes at your doorstep.

Edited

You are a walking cliche.
If they are being house they are asylum seekers. It is not illegal to claim asylum.
For someone who claims to be such a high achiever you don't seem to have much intelligence in discerning between 'news' and 'right wing propaganda'.
I think you should go. You will be with like minded people.

SoOxon · 17/03/2025 12:09

Op what is your employ which would provide
a 6 figure salary to an employee with such poor grammar, syntax, reasoning skills as you display.

California or Dubai, you choose, or stay in Wolverhampton dreaming of moving to either disparate oases as I don’t believe you are listening.

SallyWD · 17/03/2025 12:08

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 11:34

Many posters are mocking me when I stated about dodgy looking men who are illegal immigrants. Two of the biggest hotels in our city centre have been used by home office to house the illegal immigrants coming on boats. This was in the news and has been opposed by residents but councils aren't able to do anything. Now, you see most of them hanging around in the city centre. This is in west midlands. You can mock people for stating the truth until it comes at your doorstep.

Edited

These are asylum seekers. It's mot illegal to claim asylum. They are not allowed to work whilst their applications are processed (it can take up to three years). They literally have nothing they can do apart from "hang around". Would you prefer it if they were locked in their rooms, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? They don't make the rules. It was the conservative government that decided to stick all asylum seekers invites for years on end.

Fountains · 17/03/2025 12:06

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 12:00

If anyone enters any country bypassing their immigration rules and laws, then they are called illegal immigrants. I will be getting a job and proper visa to move to USA or Dubai, hence it's not the same.

Sure you will. They’ll be fighting over you, given the general level of information and literacy you display on this thread.

Josiezu · 17/03/2025 12:06

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 11:56

Don't you think it's racist to talk like that about white people? Why do you think you can say anything racist about white people and that's okay?

I mean it’s not racist to suggest you sound utterly moronic moaning about immigration while stating your solution is to become an immigrant, in a country of mostly immigrants.

You moan about people coming here but want to go to another country in order to capitalise on their low paid labour because you don’t want to pay too much for someone to look after your kids.

CleverButScatty · 17/03/2025 12:04

Badbadbunny · 17/03/2025 11:10

Decent jobs in the US have private healthcare provided, so that aspect is covered. "Dangerous" areas/schools etc are mostly in specific areas typically "down town" and some very strange often more rural areas - there are plenty of "nicer/safer" places to live, work and go to school if you can live in the "nicer" parts of town or the "nicer" more rural/coastal areas.

My son works in a big UK financial services firm and says there's a "leaving do" almost weekly for someone leaving to work Dubai, USA, Canada or Australia. He can't remember anyone leaving to move to a competitor UK based firm!

There's certainly a very worrying brain drain leaving the UK at the moment.

In the US, even with good insurance you pay thousands in excess.
So my friend had her eldest child there. She had a corporate HR job with high level medical insurance.
Even her daughter was born she had an emergency C-section and a couple of extra days in hospital til baby was well enough to go home.
The excess she paid was just over $20k and she had to go back to work when her daughter was 8 weeks old.
It really isn't as simple as getting free health cover if you have a decent job.

arethereanyleftatall · 17/03/2025 12:04

Boopear · 17/03/2025 11:27

Sorry, I really can’t believe that you earn to 6 figures. Even in tech which still needs a reasonable level of articulation. It is ‘illusion’ not delusion. Their not there. Are you a native English speaker?

I thought the same with ‘there’ rather than ‘their’. I’m assuming a post designed to get people slagging off the UK for some reason.

MrsSkylerWhite · 17/03/2025 12:02

LeavinUK · Today 12:00
**
If anyone enters any country bypassing their immigration rules and laws, then they are called illegal immigrants

People entering the UK are asylum seekers until their application is processed.

ScarlettOYara · 17/03/2025 12:01

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 12:00

If anyone enters any country bypassing their immigration rules and laws, then they are called illegal immigrants. I will be getting a job and proper visa to move to USA or Dubai, hence it's not the same.

Where are you from, originally?

MrsSkylerWhite · 17/03/2025 12:01

85 percent of ex-pats living in Dubai are from Asia.

Fair enough.

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 12:00

If anyone enters any country bypassing their immigration rules and laws, then they are called illegal immigrants. I will be getting a job and proper visa to move to USA or Dubai, hence it's not the same.

OP posts:
MrsSkylerWhite · 17/03/2025 12:00

LeavinUK
**
Don't you think it's racist to talk like that about white people? Why do you think you can say anything racist about white people and that's okay?

No I don’t. Personal experience over decades of travelling widely amongst wealthy white British people (which I am).

Fountains · 17/03/2025 11:59

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 11:56

Don't you think it's racist to talk like that about white people? Why do you think you can say anything racist about white people and that's okay?

Ok, I’m calling deliberate wind-up on this one. No one is this dense.

ScarlettOYara · 17/03/2025 11:58

Davros · 17/03/2025 11:56

@Badbadbunnyi’m very sorry to hear all of that and I don’t doubt anything you say. It isn’t the experience I have had or my family or friends. Maybe it shows just how different it is depending on the area one lives in, which is not how it should be

Yes, it must be area dependent. I think my family have been very lucky.

ScarlettOYara · 17/03/2025 11:57

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 11:56

Don't you think it's racist to talk like that about white people? Why do you think you can say anything racist about white people and that's okay?

Why is her post racist? I don't understand?

DisneyTokyoNewbie · 17/03/2025 11:57

MrsSkylerWhite · 17/03/2025 11:54

DaffodilsGalore · Today 11:41

Btw the level of immigration in Dubai is about 90%.
Is that ok with you to move to a country with such high level of immigration?

I expect lots are white. Do you not understand? White people choosing to live overseas aren’t immigrants. They’re “ex-pats”. They don’t need to assimilate, either. Just build big walls and gates around their accommodation and shout loudly.

85 percent of ex-pats living in Dubai are from Asia.

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 11:56

MrsSkylerWhite · 17/03/2025 11:54

DaffodilsGalore · Today 11:41

Btw the level of immigration in Dubai is about 90%.
Is that ok with you to move to a country with such high level of immigration?

I expect lots are white. Do you not understand? White people choosing to live overseas aren’t immigrants. They’re “ex-pats”. They don’t need to assimilate, either. Just build big walls and gates around their accommodation and shout loudly.

Don't you think it's racist to talk like that about white people? Why do you think you can say anything racist about white people and that's okay?

OP posts:
Davros · 17/03/2025 11:56

@Badbadbunnyi’m very sorry to hear all of that and I don’t doubt anything you say. It isn’t the experience I have had or my family or friends. Maybe it shows just how different it is depending on the area one lives in, which is not how it should be

MrsSkylerWhite · 17/03/2025 11:54

DaffodilsGalore · Today 11:41

Btw the level of immigration in Dubai is about 90%.
Is that ok with you to move to a country with such high level of immigration?

I expect lots are white. Do you not understand? White people choosing to live overseas aren’t immigrants. They’re “ex-pats”. They don’t need to assimilate, either. Just build big walls and gates around their accommodation and shout loudly.

LeavinUK · 17/03/2025 11:54

I love our NHS and the staff work really really hard to provide the best care they can in the means they have. But, the A&E waiting times were so long when we visited last year with young DC.
UK is a great country but the public services are getting worse every year and the taxes are only going up so I feel we are not getting much value for the high taxes we are paying.

OP posts:
suburberphobe · 17/03/2025 11:52

OP, I have friends who used to live in Dubai. They kept on their flat in London and spent the summer months there because it is too unbearably hot then in Dubai.

Badbadbunny · 17/03/2025 11:50

@Itsanewnameeveryday

I know health care is not the only reason you want to move but if you were in true emergency, you would receive good care via the NHS.

Bullshit. My MIL was blue lighted on New Years Eve and spent 48 hours on a trolley in a corridor alongside A&E, being completely ignored. She had double pneumonia, SATS of 85, and was gasping for breath. It took lots of hassle of us begging for help for them even to give her an oxygen mask. She was basically ignored. One of us had to stay with her all day and all night to give her water, food and take her to the loo - the staff ignored her. It was two days later that she was finally given IV fluids and IV antibiotics and she died a few hours after finally being moved to a ward.

So, no, it's absolute bullshit to say that you'd receive good NHS care in an emergency!

SallyWD · 17/03/2025 11:49

Wow. I'm not saying there arent problems here. There are plenty. We've all seen the country decline (by the way, I'm not talking about immigration here). But to imagine that life in America would be better is just absurd!! First of all, look at who they voted in and what a complete shit show they've become. They've lost the respect of the rest of the world.
Politics aside - their health care is horrendous. I had a particular type of cancer so joined a support group on Facebook. 99% of members are American. Many have good health insurance yet experience endless problems with their health care. Insurance companies frequently refusing to pay for scans or treatment. They constantly seem to be battling the insurance company it's which is the last thing they need when ill with cancer. It's hugely stressful. Whilst I sailed through my cancer diagnosis and treatment here, their experiences have been a nightmare.
Uk's not family friendly and America is?? They have barely any maternity leave, barely any annual leave, a culture of long working hours and being wage slaves. Social security is being cut right back so heaving forbid you ever find yourself disabled or on long term sick. Yes you'll get paid more. Great.

Badbadbunny · 17/03/2025 11:46

Davros · 17/03/2025 10:59

Have you actually experienced problems with the NHS? I have very varied and extensive experience of the NHS and overall I find it brilliant. I live very near a big London teaching hospital, lucky me, but I have relatives and friends in other areas who also have varied and good experiences. I think a lot of the reports about the NHS are media nonsense. I understand that there are problems, nothing is perfect, but that’s all we ever hear about. As a PP said, why not get private healthcare here? Then you’ve got a proper comparison.

We've had universally poor experiences almost every time we've needed the NHS.

They killed my MIL by leaving her with double pneumonia on a trolley in an A&E corridor over this last New Years' Day.

My OH has cancer, and has been on his current chemotherapy drug treatment for four years - never once has his drugs been ready on the monthly start day, he's constantly had his blood tests cancelled, likewise his monthly infusions, the consultant hasn't a clue when he started his current round of monthly chemo - because the oncology dept is a shambles, sometimes it can be 7-10 days late before he gets the drugs, which pushes that month back, which fouls up the following month, etc., and their admin team simply aren't capable of moving all subsequent appointments/start dates back the corresponding number of days, so the next month is a foul up too!

In 2010, the NHS finally killed my father after about four years of misdiagnoses, languishing in various hospital wards clearly with the doctors just waiting for him to die because there was no urgency or any idea at all as to why he was deteriorating, nor did they seem to care. First time was a simple bowel blockage, but it took six months for them to diagnose the blatantly obvious, over which time he turned from a fit and healthy 60+ year old to a frail bed ridden shadow of his former self. It took him a year to recover after they finally operated, and then he started with lots of other symptoms which the GPs fobbed him off with. A year after he was going downhill again, he collapsed, blue lighted to hospital, where they diagnosed cancer. Weeks/months languishing in hospital wards again whilst they did tests, numerous consultants, all saying he needed an operation to remove the tumour, but never actually doing it. Lots of "booked" operations, constantly cancelled. It was probably 6-9 months before they operated, and of course, afterwards they said it had been too late - lots of shrugged shoulders, but they really didn't care that they'd effectively killed him with their delays, cancellations and dithering.

They killed my MIL in 2008 after another misdiagnosis - again GPs completely failed to diagnose cancer despite numerous consultations with serious symptoms pointing to cancer. Again, only diagnosed after being blue lighted to A&E after collapsing, and again, weeks and months of delays before they actually did anything.

It's really not fit for purpose. Cancer treatment in our area is particularly crap. Both in terms of GP surgeries not diagnosing it and then in terms of an utterly disorganised and chaotic oncology department.