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Would you leave the UK now if you could?

169 replies

JamSandle · 01/11/2022 13:23

I've been thinking this...with how things are going in the UK, would you leave if you could, or encourage your kids to?

I know nowhere is perfect but just curious of peoples thoughts.

OP posts:
Qwaszx · 01/11/2022 18:51

No. I love where I live, its my home. But I would be thrilled beyond measure if the bloke next door passed on.

Sorry.

Moved on.

I'd take either 😁

Theydoyaknow · 01/11/2022 18:55

It’s a kip in every sense of the word. If i could, I would be gone.

theDudesmummy · 01/11/2022 18:59

Oh, thinking about it I suppose that people may be saying about getting an Irish passport so they can move to other countries in the EU, not Ireland. True. But you can get an Irish passport without Irish ancestry, you just have to live here for 5 years to apply (that is what we are doing)...

jtaeapa · 01/11/2022 19:06

If I didn't have family ties, then yes I would look into leaving. We are severely overcrowded here - it means that you can't see a GP quickly or sometimes even at all, you can't get your car fixed quickly, homes are constructed virtually on top of eachother causing disputes, roads are gridlocked, you phone any large business and you will be on hold forever, education is appalling, council "services" are a joke etc etc. I've been screwed over or cheated enough times not to trust anyone. There is so little pride taken in anything that people do - they want money and don't care if they've done a bad job. I think 30 million of us should be redistributed in places that are not so bloody overcrowded! I include myself, I'm not telling others to bugger off.

Lentilweaver · 01/11/2022 19:18

ScarlettnotOHara · 01/11/2022 18:49

Absolutely, the damp, grey weather gets me right down . Our city is boarded up and dirty and we are working hard for very little life pleasures . We visited Seville and were blown away with the scenery and culture. We went out to a local bar where people in their 50s were dancing and having a great time ! We just sit in every night watching tv 😞

Why do you sit in? Unless you are skint which would be fair enough. I go out often and get a lot of culture.

JoonT · 01/11/2022 20:16

No. I love living here. Britain is one of the most interesting places in the world. (I agree with Bill Bryson about that.) On a bright Autumn day, there is literally nowhere I'd rather be than Cambridge or Oxford or Bath. When I walk around Cambridge, for example, it gives me such a thrill to think of the people who've lived and studied there: Byron, Wordsworth, Isaac Newton, Darwin, Nabokov, Wittgenstein, Sylvia Plath. It amazes me to think "god, this is where the atom was first understood, where DNA was discovered." And that's just one town!

I also love the literature. Harold Bloom, the American critic, once compiled a list of what he thought were the world's great books - the world canon, in other words. There were more British authors on that list than any other nationality. And I love the way our literature is woven into the landscape. Spring means Chaucer, Christmas means Dickens, foggy London means Sherlock Holmes, the Yorkshire moors mean the Brontes, Bath means Jane Austen, and so on. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Jane Austen, Dickens, Hardy, D H Lawrence, Woolf, Tolkien, Larkin...all of them write about the British seasons, the flowers and trees, etc.

This Christmas I will be in Oxford. I'll go and see the pub in which Tolkien and C S Lewis met to discuss Lord of the Rings, then visit the college where Oscar Wilde studied. If you are interested in literature and history and art and ideas (in culture), the UK is a gem.

My major complaint is that it's too crowded. And yes, the roads are a nightmare and the houses are small and squashed together and the skies are too grey, but everywhere has its downsides. I loathe the heat, so no way would I move to Spain or Australia. Norway and Sweden have a high standard of living, but they are also dark, especially in winter, and they have nowhere that compares to London.

MadAndGlad · 01/11/2022 20:21

Definately if I could! Retired and it all seems so complicated now.

Artygirlghost · 01/11/2022 20:25

Reading all this is making me quite sad I must say.

Brexit and the recent governments have done so much damage.

I find myself thinking about the 90s and living in London. The years of Cool Britannia. There was is much optimism then.

I have just sold my flat in London. Everything has just become so overcrowded, unpleasant, ridiculously expensive and I can see more and more anti social behaviour everyday.

I am not planning on leaving the UK itself for now but I truly believe that quality of life in this country has gone down drastically.

Brexit was just an act of madness and we have had one psychopathic and useless government after another since who have gone full on fascist as far as I am concerned. Depressing in the extreme.

MarshaBradyo · 01/11/2022 20:27

JoonT · 01/11/2022 20:16

No. I love living here. Britain is one of the most interesting places in the world. (I agree with Bill Bryson about that.) On a bright Autumn day, there is literally nowhere I'd rather be than Cambridge or Oxford or Bath. When I walk around Cambridge, for example, it gives me such a thrill to think of the people who've lived and studied there: Byron, Wordsworth, Isaac Newton, Darwin, Nabokov, Wittgenstein, Sylvia Plath. It amazes me to think "god, this is where the atom was first understood, where DNA was discovered." And that's just one town!

I also love the literature. Harold Bloom, the American critic, once compiled a list of what he thought were the world's great books - the world canon, in other words. There were more British authors on that list than any other nationality. And I love the way our literature is woven into the landscape. Spring means Chaucer, Christmas means Dickens, foggy London means Sherlock Holmes, the Yorkshire moors mean the Brontes, Bath means Jane Austen, and so on. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Jane Austen, Dickens, Hardy, D H Lawrence, Woolf, Tolkien, Larkin...all of them write about the British seasons, the flowers and trees, etc.

This Christmas I will be in Oxford. I'll go and see the pub in which Tolkien and C S Lewis met to discuss Lord of the Rings, then visit the college where Oscar Wilde studied. If you are interested in literature and history and art and ideas (in culture), the UK is a gem.

My major complaint is that it's too crowded. And yes, the roads are a nightmare and the houses are small and squashed together and the skies are too grey, but everywhere has its downsides. I loathe the heat, so no way would I move to Spain or Australia. Norway and Sweden have a high standard of living, but they are also dark, especially in winter, and they have nowhere that compares to London.

Thanks for this. I feel similarly about London too and the arts and history

ScarlettnotOHara · 01/11/2022 20:42

@Lentilweaver because our so called ‘city ‘ has no culture. Even the cinema has closed down.

ShandaLear · 01/11/2022 20:49

Yay!! Yes, can’t wait. I have dual citizenship so the minute the youngest heads off to uni I am outta this shithole 🎉🎉🎉

DearOohDear · 01/11/2022 21:38

@JoonT spot on , it's incredible isn't it

keeprunningupthathill · 01/11/2022 21:43

100%. If we could buy a house in France (a la escape to the chateau hit far more modest!) I'd be there. It's my dream. But I'm only 42 and got a massive mortgage, two young kids in school, and years of stress to get through. Life sucks sometimes.

keeprunningupthathill · 01/11/2022 21:45

JoonT · 01/11/2022 20:16

No. I love living here. Britain is one of the most interesting places in the world. (I agree with Bill Bryson about that.) On a bright Autumn day, there is literally nowhere I'd rather be than Cambridge or Oxford or Bath. When I walk around Cambridge, for example, it gives me such a thrill to think of the people who've lived and studied there: Byron, Wordsworth, Isaac Newton, Darwin, Nabokov, Wittgenstein, Sylvia Plath. It amazes me to think "god, this is where the atom was first understood, where DNA was discovered." And that's just one town!

I also love the literature. Harold Bloom, the American critic, once compiled a list of what he thought were the world's great books - the world canon, in other words. There were more British authors on that list than any other nationality. And I love the way our literature is woven into the landscape. Spring means Chaucer, Christmas means Dickens, foggy London means Sherlock Holmes, the Yorkshire moors mean the Brontes, Bath means Jane Austen, and so on. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Jane Austen, Dickens, Hardy, D H Lawrence, Woolf, Tolkien, Larkin...all of them write about the British seasons, the flowers and trees, etc.

This Christmas I will be in Oxford. I'll go and see the pub in which Tolkien and C S Lewis met to discuss Lord of the Rings, then visit the college where Oscar Wilde studied. If you are interested in literature and history and art and ideas (in culture), the UK is a gem.

My major complaint is that it's too crowded. And yes, the roads are a nightmare and the houses are small and squashed together and the skies are too grey, but everywhere has its downsides. I loathe the heat, so no way would I move to Spain or Australia. Norway and Sweden have a high standard of living, but they are also dark, especially in winter, and they have nowhere that compares to London.

See I read this and think how much I love Bath, and the history of so many places. But I don't live there, I live in a cultural desert. And life is so mundane. People are very lucky to have even a few years of their life where they don't have to earn 3/4K a month each just to pay the basic bills!

RedAppleTree · 01/11/2022 21:57

These countries that some are wishing to escape to, might be okay if you are an 'expat' and have some money but for the locals who are the poorest, it's terrible, worse than being in England, which is why lots emigrate to the UK, or other places, in search of a better life. I lived in a certain European country and saw with my own eyes how awful life was for the poorest, almost third world conditions.

allboysherebutme · 01/11/2022 22:46

Yes. X

Kissingfrogs25 · 02/11/2022 08:19

I can't help but notice people saying we are over crowded here, yes, we are over crowded because so many people wish to live here!

The choose to live here over all other countries for good reason, and quite frankly some that haven't travelled and lived overseas lack the insight of just how fortunate they are - culturally, financially and in all other ways.

If you don't feel that way - go and live elsewhere and have at least the benefit of comparison. I nearly died in a Greek hospital - it was of third world standard at best, the grass seriously is not always greener. Be glad for what you do have.

Kissingfrogs25 · 02/11/2022 08:27

**choice

RosaGallica · 02/11/2022 09:17

Yep. This country has chosen the way of elitist control, lying, and international financial elites. There’s no democracy, there’s no public services, there’s no functioning economy - and there is no interest in building one. Work doesn’t pay and education and training are restricted to wealth. Law and order is breaking down. The country outside London has effectively been abandoned.

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