To ask why people flee the UK?

[seasonalsparkler]

I haven't posted in a while and have name changed. In light of recent events such as brexit, royal drama and suicidal behaviour- I can't help but to pick up on a troubling undercurrent. So I guess I am asking for anyone to shed light on why you have fled the UK or why you might consider doing so?

@meltonmowbray I don’t know if the US has a similar site , I’ve never looked. But I’m not here for the parenting stuff. I don’t even have children (not by choice, however). I miss the British banter. I come here for nostalgia, to read about bargains in Tescos, TV programmes, the Royal Family. And so on. I need my dose of dry British humor from time to time.

I love my life here in the US. Doesn’t mean I’ve stopped appreciating all things British.

Jealous much?

meltonmowbray
One thing that the UK can offer over and above some other countries is the culture.

The UK can certainly offer lots of culture, so can every single other country in the world, no countries "culture" is better or worse than any others. Name one country that has no culture... What a weird thing to say!!

And yet here you all are on a UK based website. Do your new fantastic countries not have their own equivalent websites ?

I come on here for the entertainment. I go onto lots of other websites from other countries too. Another odd comment...

@meltonmowbray

Well someone asked why people left the UK and we answered. It would be a bit odd if we all said that it's just super amazing but we're really dumb and left. The UK has lots going for it, I was born there and my family still live there, but it is in no way perfect especially if you are poor or working class. The lifestyle where I live is better; I can afford to live in a 2 bed flat and even save enough to buy a house, childcare is affordable and good quality and frankly the culture here is far more family friendly here.

Let's not deny that there is a nasty mix of classis, racism and arrogance that is shot through society. I worked every day since I was 13 in the UK and was paying over 1000 a month to rent a room and I wasn't even in London! I couldn't afford to go to university or college and frankly the goverments of the last decade or so sold my future down the river. I had no chance of having a stable job, decent housing or having a family of my own. I don't want much just a decent future and for my kids to have a future too.

I don't actually think the UK has that much great culture - I'd love to know what you consider to be wonderful English culture.

Where I live now there are cultural festivals run by the town hall every couple of months where the entire city comes out to celebrate. They have really specific rituals and traditions and everyone from kids to old people get involved, even the teenagers (who in the UK would be at home on FIFA) are taking part, dressing up etc.

We have food specific to each tiny region, food and wine produced from lovely little areas here that are eaten in certain ways, all closely linked to culture.

I've never experienced anything like this in the UK. And don't say bloody maypole dancing or anything to do with the Queen.

One thing that the UK can offer over and above some other countries is the culture.

Which culture are you referring to? The one that is about to become far more difficult on foot of Brexit? Orchestras, opera singers, dance, theatre, writers coming to read at UK literary festivals -- all can operate as they do because of free and easy movement within Europe.

I know people in the opera and classical music worlds already tearing their hair out over how this is going to affect touring or needing a last-minute replacement singer from overseas.

And yet here you all are on a UK based website. Do your new fantastic countries not have their own equivalent websites ?

They do but they're more in tune with the native way of doing things. Polite and civilised. So I come here for the batshit fuckwittery which I can't find elsewhere.

Nevertheless, you are here.

I work in a job where I have long hours on standby waiting for transport due to weather restrictions, then blocks of duty away from home with not a lot to do. the nut bags of MN keep me entertained. There are also wonderful, kind decent folk outside of the chatty mum areas.

It is a very good source of batshit fuckwittery, it has to be said. One of the best, I would have thought. . .

@meltonmowbary
Nevertheless, you are here

And..? What IS your point?

So I come here for the batshit fuckwittery which I can't find elsewhere ohhh i hear that. Where I live nobody would come to a thread to ask why there friend used a certain wording on their invite, or ask why their wife is upset at them calling them mum every day. It's like a trashy magazine, but better, and updated every day!!

*their not there

Or a friend had a 50th birthday in the same week as them... The same week I tell you

Or a friend had a 50th birthday in the same week as them... The same week I tell you

The very ideeeea!

As for why I love mumsnet, I do enjoy some of the batshit threads and I love the recipe threads... Only on MN can a single chicken feed a family of 12 for a month ;)

I remember the woman who released a goldfish into a river and was so badly attacked by the MN gangsters she handed herself into her local police station. Sitting at port I pass the time just crying at these people.

You do need to be reasonably robust to post here. . . particularly if not posting completely within the agreed party mumsnet lines. . .

If I could leave I would. I'm 29 and there are literally no prospects in staying. I've been saddled with huge amounts of student debt for a low salary, high rents and a high cost of living with little disposable income. I'll likely never own my home and by the time I come to retire (probably 75-80 by then) things like pensions and the NHS will be nonexistent. All for a society that is becoming more racist, zenaphobic and unequal. Child poverty is at an all time high and we've record amounts of homeless people and people using food banks.

Can we honestly say we do anything well? Our weather is awful and our public transport a disgrace....

Only going to get worse now we've left the EU and become more insular.

I've heard anecdotally of quite a lot of people who were born elsewhere but moved and have lived here a long time leaving because they are turned off by the growing sense that this country is becoming more inward-looking and jingoistic.

Yes, that's me. 'Don't stay where you are tolerated, go where you are celebrated.'

Well, you can't exactly take responsibility for the weather - it is what it is!

Your public transport - it depends on where you are. Obviously the trains are not behaving terribly well at the moment, which is an issue. In NZ, we'd dream of a public transport system like the UK's, in most areas. It's bloody useless on the whole. In many parts, virtually non-existent.

In fact, pretty much all of which you wrote, @Jamieson90, I've heard people say in NZ. Which is one of the places many think of escaping immigrating to.

As I've said so often in threads like this on NZ sites - Utopia don't exist.

I don't know anyone who has left the UK at all. My beauticians parents have moved back from Spain but that's it.

I do like and miss the culture of the UK, I don't mean art and music and so on, I just mean the ways and mannerisms of people, that familiarity and ease that you get from being among people you grew up with. That's why I'm drawn to other UK emigrants and still use MN, and enjoy visiting the UK, but I like living elsewhere.

As I've said so often in threads like this on NZ sites - Utopia don't exist

I think each person can find their own type of utopia though. Everyone has things they are willing to trade-off. Where I live now is my utopia, I will NEVER EVER leave. However, it's to do with my situation, personality and interests as much as the place.

If you hate the UK - find somewhere else.

Incidentally, the top places to live in Europe are very English speaker friendly: www.stylist.co.uk/travel/best-cities-to-live-in-europe-scandinavia-copenhagen-berm-the-hague/356993

I'd take ANY of those over the UK. (where I live isn't on the list btw)

I think each person can find their own type of utopia though. Everyone has things they are willing to trade-off.

Absolutely this.

For instance, I'm fine with the UK's weather, and certainly far prefer it to where we lived in the ME, where I found the dryness, lack of clearly-defined seasons and the summer heat pretty depressing.

Mmmm, I dunno. I get what you're saying, but it's not necessarily that easy.

There's no god-given right, if born in the UK, to be able to 'just leave', because you don't like the weather. You're going to have to have sufficient of what the country you deem to be your personal Utopia wants, to be able to win your place there. That's not necessarily going to be possible for all people.

And of course, with Brexit, the pickings have been somewhat slimmed! Might be harder to get in - also harder to get out. . .