Anyone else scared of what the future holds for this country?

[AdamRyan]

Trigger warning I guess for news avoiders.

I've been feeling very uneasy since the Brexit vote but it's now tipped into outright terror that a huge catastrophe is coming and I can't see how we can avoid it! Hopefully people can make me feel better....

So:
*energy bills going up and government borrowing obscene amounts of money to cap it

• also paying for the proxy war on Russia
  
• also still paying off covid costs
  
• companies struggling as not enough staff, lots appear to be on the bare bones and I suspect we'll see bankruptcies soon as they can't meet contractual obligations and have to pay out
  
• No plans for fixing staff shortages
  
• medicine shortages
  
• empty shelves in shops
  
• pound is tanking
  
• everyone striking as staff can't afford cost of living
  
• basic public services (transport, NHS, rubbish, roads etc) unreliable
  
• power insufficient - risk of black and brown outs
  
• inflation going up so interest rates rising too - increasing pressures on households
  
• more people using food banks and more homeless
  
• No trade deal with USA, out of EU so not benefitting from preferential energy deals they are negotiating with e.g. Norway
  
• Then to top it all off, climate change, droughts, storms, flooding getting increasingly more severe
  
  At the same time, despite spending as if there is a magic money tree, the government is cutting taxes primarily on rich people and refusing to publish the maths so we don't know how much their actions are costing!
  
  I'm genuinely fearful for the future of the country as well as the world! Cheer me up please....

[Pyewhacket]

@onthefencesitter

I do think many people will leave. But when you leave a poor country (which the UK is going to be) for greener pastures, that is going to be a very different experience from a Norwegian or a Canadian electing to move to Tokyo or Hongkong.

You wouldn't be leaving because you want to, you would be leaving because thats the only way to feed your children. And the only visa you might qualify for might not allow you to take your children or the cost of living in other countries might be so expensive relative to the UK that you can't take your children. So the UK outside London (which I believe would be more insulated from this) might be a collection of old people and children while the adults work overseas and remit money home.

I've actually worked in Japan and I never met anybody from either Norway or Canada, ever. Also, Japan was just about the most racist place I worked. Luckily my contract was only for 12 months and that was with a US medical organisation.

And as for the UK morphing into some third-world basket case of starving infants and old people. Well, you just need to get out more and see the UK as it is and not as it exists in your brain.

[Dave20]

@Perfect28

Pyewhacket what are you hoping to achieve here exactly? Are you in support of all the shit things the Tories are doing to our country?

Pyewhacket seems to think you can just rock up in a foreign county and live there.
Im actually laughing how naive people are.

[Dave20]

This for Australia for example- To qualify, you'll need to either be sponsored by an eligible relative or be nominated to apply by a state or territory government agency. You must score 65 points or more and be under the age of 45 when you apply, and your occupation must be on the list of eligible occupations.

[mathanxiety]

The pound will have to be propped up by means of higher and higher interest rates or the cost of oil, which is priced in dollars, will cause a financial and economic tailspin in the UK.

The UK has removed itself from the EU and was never in the Eurozone, so the collateral damage won't be too severe elsewhere, though the UK's problems will definitely have an effect. There is no trade deal in sight with the US. Preparations for talks haven't even got under way. The current US administration will not talk unless the GFA and the Protocol are observed by the UK.

The upcoming cold season will see a lot of pressure on the British government to abandon Ukraine to Russia. I suspect Putin will end up holding the east and Ukraine will be divided. The blustering of Johnson and Truss on Ukraine is a vanity project designed to appeal to core Tory voters' conceit that the UK is a solid and stable global power, and important enough to be listened to.

I think the IMF will end up directing the UK economy, and that the current government's longstanding austerity and current tax policies will result in the return of rickets and scabies and TB, and all the other problems that plagued the poor in the early 20th century.

[fallinover]

@Pyewhacket

If the UK is so shit then leave. There are plenty of trains and aeroplanes heading in all directions.

We did leave but it actually pretty hard and you have to be quite lucky to be able to do so post-Brexit.

[onthefencesitter]

@Pyewhacket

I've actually worked in Japan and I never met anybody from either Norway or Canada, ever. Also, Japan was just about the most racist place I worked. Luckily my contract was only for 12 months and that was with a US medical organisation.

And as for the UK morphing into some third-world basket case of starving infants and old people. Well, you just need to get out more and see the UK as it is and not as it exists in your brain.

I have actually lived in three different countries including the UK. Never thought I would see the day the UK is poorer than Poland for the average person either. Time will tell.

[Perfect28]

Pyewhacket people are not imagining the things mentioned in the op, there is plenty of evidence in support of them...

You sound deluded

[onthefencesitter]

@Pyewhacket

I've actually worked in Japan and I never met anybody from either Norway or Canada, ever. Also, Japan was just about the most racist place I worked. Luckily my contract was only for 12 months and that was with a US medical organisation.

And as for the UK morphing into some third-world basket case of starving infants and old people. Well, you just need to get out more and see the UK as it is and not as it exists in your brain.

I live in a nice part of north london and so am insulated from a lot of it. But I was shocked when I went to birmingham, i thought to myself that this looks worse than malaysia (an actual third world country albeit one striving for first world status). And Birmingham is one of our big cities...

The average UK family isn't one that lives in London or the SE though! I suspect many people in the SE or London would be richer than people in Poland; as FT says, as long as you are in top 3% (£84,000 after tax income for two people doesn't actually sound that unattainable), you are on the same level as rich people in Germany or even Norway aka will achieve a first world standard of leaving. I think even top 10% wouldn't be that bad.

Its the bottom 50% who will be living in third world style conditions.

[Pyewhacket]

@Dave20

Pyewhacket seems to think you can just rock up in a foreign county and live there.
Im actually laughing how naive people are.

I spent six years living and working in several countries, across the world, including Australia. And I still get agencies contacting me for overseas positions, including all across Europe and the US. But I was glad to come home. And if you think eastern Europe is so great I work with quite a few people from Poland and none have any ambition to go back. Also, a lot of eastern Europe is in a virtual state of panic at the moment. And finally, why are thousands of economic migrants rocking up on the Kent coast and not heading for eastern Europe. Surely they would be better off there ??????.

[Dave20]

Because in the UK they are likely to get the basics such as food and shelter.
The fact they are coming to the UK via the channel and from war torn countries doesn’t mean that it’s so good hear. It just means it’s better to live here than a war zone.

[Ylvamoon]

Why aren't you in the streets protesting?

This shit happens because you let it happen.

You are allowed to demonstrate peacefully... so what is it that is stopping you?

[onthefencesitter]

@Pyewhacket

I spent six years living and working in several countries, across the world, including Australia. And I still get agencies contacting me for overseas positions, including all across Europe and the US. But I was glad to come home. And if you think eastern Europe is so great I work with quite a few people from Poland and none have any ambition to go back. Also, a lot of eastern Europe is in a virtual state of panic at the moment. And finally, why are thousands of economic migrants rocking up on the Kent coast and not heading for eastern Europe. Surely they would be better off there ??????.

you can earn money without ID in the UK. there is a lot of work if you are willing to work long hours. It will not be comfortable but it will pay. Its not the same in Eastern Europe, its not so easy for brown people to get a job. In the UK, migrants might have family connections and that will make it easier for them to get a job (and in the UK, there are large migrant communities and lots of supermarkets, shops etc that will hire migrants).

I am an immigrant actually from a country that is richer than the UK. I have no immediate plans to go back but would not renounce my citizenship so that my future child will have a way out. But I would not say this means that the UK is a good place to live; immigrants who have a good living situation here would be wary of changing it. I have a comfortable life in London, i would have a comfortable life in my home country too (and possibly earn more money), but I don't feel the upheaval would justify the extra money if that makes sense?

[StJeanDeVence]

<<ignoring the usual-suspect Tory / Brexit apologists>>

Yes, OP, YANBU. People who don't believe the UK is heading fast up a very very shitty creek are suffering from a normalcy bias. They are refusing to look objectively at what is happening to the country.

We are in a bad way. Brexit is a disaster, and we are now fully in the hands of those who engineered it. Our govt is run by the ERG and right-wing think-tanks, people whose only aim in life is to make themselves and their mates as rich as possible, as quickly as possible. And not through 'hard work' but through crashing the economy and shorting the markets. There will be people who have had a lovely big payday today, as the £ drops to the lowest level in decades.

The NHS is on its knees. Children are going to school without food. Many people will not be able to heat their homes this winter. Inflation and interest rates are rising. Food banks are shutting down, not because they aren't needed but because they can't afford to stay open. The govt wants unregulated, low-tax, low-wage charter cities which will only make the situation worse for so many.

I really believe that lots of people don't have a clue what is coming in the next 12 months or so. It will make the 70s look like a time of milk and honey, and it will take decades to recover from.

[Pyewhacket]

@Dave20

Because in the UK they are likely to get the basics such as food and shelter.
The fact they are coming to the UK via the channel and from war torn countries doesn’t mean that it’s so good hear. It just means it’s better to live here than a war zone.

War-torn Albania ?

[Perfect28]

So come on the pyewhacket how does it serve you to deny the reality of what's happening in this country?

[Pyewhacket]

you can earn money without ID in the UK. there is a lot of work if you are willing to work long hours. It will not be comfortable but it will pay. Its not the same in Eastern Europe

Then we need to learn from Eastern Europe.

[onthefencesitter]

@Perfect28

So come on the pyewhacket how does it serve you to deny the reality of what's happening in this country?

Oh its easy. She is the top 3%.

Those people are fine. and would probably continue to be fine. Its the bottom 50% who will really suffer. This should matter in a democracy, whats the point of having a democracy if only the top 3-10% have nice lives and the 90% suffer and the government only does stuff that makes the rich richer.

[KingstonLane]

@AdamRyan

Trigger warning I guess for news avoiders.

I've been feeling very uneasy since the Brexit vote but it's now tipped into outright terror that a huge catastrophe is coming and I can't see how we can avoid it! Hopefully people can make me feel better....

So:
*energy bills going up and government borrowing obscene amounts of money to cap it

• also paying for the proxy war on Russia
  
• also still paying off covid costs
  
• companies struggling as not enough staff, lots appear to be on the bare bones and I suspect we'll see bankruptcies soon as they can't meet contractual obligations and have to pay out
  
• No plans for fixing staff shortages
  
• medicine shortages
  
• empty shelves in shops
  
• pound is tanking
  
• everyone striking as staff can't afford cost of living
  
• basic public services (transport, NHS, rubbish, roads etc) unreliable
  
• power insufficient - risk of black and brown outs
  
• inflation going up so interest rates rising too - increasing pressures on households
  
• more people using food banks and more homeless
  
• No trade deal with USA, out of EU so not benefitting from preferential energy deals they are negotiating with e.g. Norway
  
• Then to top it all off, climate change, droughts, storms, flooding getting increasingly more severe
  
  At the same time, despite spending as if there is a magic money tree, the government is cutting taxes primarily on rich people and refusing to publish the maths so we don't know how much their actions are costing!
  
  I'm genuinely fearful for the future of the country as well as the world! Cheer me up please....

And sadly adding the state if our education system. Privatisation by the ‘back door’. An academisation programme and the recent white paper removing our democratic right over our children education and creating a greedy beast that not even the DfE seem able or willing to address.

[Perfect28]

Answer, we don't have democracy.

[Pyewhacket]

@onthefencesitter

Oh its easy. She is the top 3%.

Those people are fine. and would probably continue to be fine. Its the bottom 50% who will really suffer. This should matter in a democracy, whats the point of having a democracy if only the top 3-10% have nice lives and the 90% suffer and the government only does stuff that makes the rich richer.

Top 3%, I wish !. I work 12-hour shifts for the NHS in Intensive Care, doing my best to keep people alive.

[Perfect28]

You work for the NHS but are defending the government?

[Allthegoodnamesarechosen]

Do you honestly believe life is better in Bulgaria?😅

[Trez1510]

In amongst all the issues already highlighted by this thread, there are for me two further elephants in the room.

The first is fracking. Destroying the economy (which is what I believe is the Tories' aim) is one thing. Destroying the environment/water tables is quite another.

The second is anti-trades union legislation meaning every single derisory offer needs to be put to members is a charter for employers to never increase wages by utilising Tory legistlation to bankrupt unions by forcing ballots on every deliberately derisory offer.

The UK will be lucky, in 2/3 years, to consider itself a third-world country. By that time the Tories will have fucked-off with the funds they have syphoned from the public purse, leaving a scorched earth (literally and financially) for whatever group of mugs pick up the votes next time round.

I'm not young, but if I were I'd be training for any career that would get me the fuck out of this currently circling-the-drain country.

[Cattenberg]

Don’t forget the sewage pouring into our waterways.

Or the new restrictions on the right to protest.

On the positive side, maybe the UK will be relatively well-protected from the dangerous heatwaves induced by climate change.

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

What a gloomy thread!

l prefer to think of things as cyclical. We
’re having ultra shit times now. Really shit. But times move in and society changes.

The Millennials will be in charge soon, and all the okd Tory voters will have died off. The Millennials wanted to stay in Europe. They are progressively minded. A lot went to university. I think they will change things.