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?

Not every one obviously, but plenty of people who socially "fail" in the UK whether because they can't get a job, can't get promoted, can't afford the lifestyle they want, think they deserve more, get a criminal conviction or have a reputation issue emigrate to places where they can start again with a clean sheet and where the costs of living is cheaper.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least 10 people I know of who fall into this broad class.

Seasonalsparkler, it's not cold here all the time; for the last few years we've had weeks of hot sunshine in the summer. It's also not that cold when it becomes dull and damp. The recent winds haven't been much fun but we don't have those all that often.

People usually go abroad to live because they have a good work opportunity and sometimes find they like the place too.

I think it's pretty good here for most people, nothing is perfect but UK has a lot going for it despite the Brexit tragedy. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else permanently.

Fleeing the UK in my opinion would be escaping from the law in some way.

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

Are you having a laugh?
Pissed up brawls on a friday Sat night and take aways!

The English aren't cultured, just look at what they bing to places like Ibiza/Cyprus or our football fans reputation?

Our drinking culture is second to none.

There is niche stuff like Opera/Theatre or garden & book festivals but these are not where the masses visit.

some seriously hilariously 'I live in a city bubble and never go outdoors' replies on this thread.

I wonder where on the planet has perfect weather? Canary islands seem to be quite pleasant all the time but there isn't room for all 7 billion of us.

Something I was thinking this weekend, was how intrepid and staunch many Brits seem in the face of bad weather. This weekend, when we took DD to skating (indoors thank goodness!), it was blowing and raining a gale - obviously. And looking up on the ski slopes outside the rink, and here are people just out there, wrapped up, ignoring the weather and having a ball. And looking out on the common, it's tipping it down, the rain is coming down horizontally in the wind, and nope, that's not going to put the runners and the dog walkers off, nor the ones that are determined to kick a ball around with their kids.

There's a lot to love and admire about the UK, and those who live here.

@mbosnz my toddler is only half British and she is desperate to go for a walk or to the park whatever the weather. Cue me standing outside freezing during storms Dennis and Ciara whilst she enjoyed exploring the flooded park.

A trait to be admired for sure.

We worked out that my kids are 1/12 British. My youngest went out walking in the worst ice storm in Canada since 2007, and I found her doing cartwheels with her jacket open, her hat off, and NO BLOODY GLOVES ON.

Mental! You know the Mad dogs and Englishmen? It's not just the midday sun.

Another thing. Brits don't just wordlessly accept things they think are crap. On our facebook group for the village, by Crikey, if something goes wrong, there's someone who knows someone who is going to have A Word. And things happen.

We moved to W. Coast of the US last year, more because of stage of life and wanting a change. Didn't want another English winter and to look back and think we never lived somewhere sunny, with fresh air and an and outdoors lifestyle. Our DD is pre-school and we thought the quality of life would be better - it is. The UK is great in many ways (NHS!) but Brexit was a huge blow for us and we didn't want to be in such a negative environment. A lovely nursery is also USD 1k per month, compared to London that less than half the price. Just miss F&F.

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

Do you only look at UK based websites then? How parochial!

I live in HK. The cost of housing is disgusting and it's very humid in summer but I earn significantly more, I feel like I'm on holiday every weekend and the tax rate is lower. We travel every other weekend (borneo is 3 hours away, Japan is 4 hours etc) and we are currently saving a much bigger house deposit than we could ever have saved at home. I do the exact same job in HK that I did at home and the rewards are far greater.

I left 10 years ago but was due to come back before the Brexit vote, to be closer to family.

Brexit uncertainty had put me right off, as has PM Boris.

We are leaving the UK to move to Crete in June . We have bought a house with a swimming pool for 100k....we will keep our house here and rent it out. It was the best and only way financially to do it as my hubby wants to retire this year at 55. We are just sick of the dark damp weather and believe our quality if life will improve and we will be afford to do things like eat out occasionally.

I keep seeing these threads and they're so self-indulgent. I've got friends from Venezuela and Peru. And Belize. And China. And Pakistan. And Bangladesh.

They're not fleeing the UK.

To them, people fucking off because of hand-wringing nonsense is madness.

And I do think people with a modicum of intelligence who talk of sunlit uplands are not as clever as they think they are.

We left (not fled) to Canada due to the cheaper standard of living, wanting to be near my family and being able to afford a house. The cost of property and daycare was taking so much of our income in London that we couldn’t enjoy the city like we once had. What was once fun began to be hard work with a baby and toddler.

Our life here is amazing and I love our home. Our jobs are comparable and I was able to stay home for 5 years with our children. We do miss the UK though but are happy visiting every couple years. I can’t see us ever returning.

I live in the same town as one of Moose’s houses and an hour away from VetOnCall. 😊 We didn’t flee. We travelled a lot for work and lived in a few different countries (have three kids born in three different countries) and thought we’d try it here. Still British citizens. Might go back at some point. Not better off, not worse off. Miss lunch in a country pub and hiking without bear spray. Definitely get more skiing though. Apparently Royal drama is following me.

We left for NYC purely to get on the property ladder. We'd experienced our (rented) home being sold out from under us more than once and with young children it wasn't an experience I cared to repeat.

There's loads we miss about the UK, but owning our own home and knowing that short of being unable to pay the mortgage we can't be turned out is more than enough of a trade off right now.

Think it must be the time that all the Canadian MNers check in

We didn't flee the UK. We moved because we love Canada and the life it offers us, but we also miss plenty of things about living in the UK and our UK family and friends.

I do agree somewhat with a PP who posted: " When I do visit the UK, the most troubling thing is the level of aggression and a general lack of respect for others that seems to pervade society. It's quite intimidating when you are no longer used to it. "

I go "home" at least once a year and don't experience what I'd term aggression, but I certainly feel that the general attitude of strangers towards others (obviously not from everyone) seems to be a bit less patient and more pissed off than it was, say, a decade ago...

Well I've not fled entirely but am abroad for several months of each year, and feel much more content because if it. I can't be bothered with the shit-stirring hatefulness of racism, immigration, hounding and judging women, Brexit. Then the whole thing of it being seen as weak if you complain about the above nastiness 'oh well you just have to be tough, as if there's merit in being horrid. The media are disgusting, rotten to the core. It's just nice to be away from it all. I don't want to live alongside Little Englander mentality anyway so I suppose in a few years I'll leave permanently, natural progression.

gwenneh I thought NYC was phenomenally expensive? When we moved from the UK to Canada we sold a 3 bed semi and bought a detached property with multiple acres of land, but that's because it was in the arse end of nowhere!

I've lived in two different countries (both outside Europe), having left the UK six years ago. There are plenty of things I miss about it (especially at Christmastime!) but I wouldn't return, purely because our economic prospects wouldn't be great (DH and I both work in fairly niche fields and this was our reason for leaving in the first place). The only person I've met who does not understand this concept is SMIL, who lives with FIL in a five-bedroom house with extensive land, and believes the only reason most other people do not live like this is laziness

I regularly check the UK news sites and I honestly don't believe the news has gotten any "worse" since we left. Brexit aside, the doom and gloom of climate change and strong-arm politicians is something that is mirrored globally anyway.

We left in an orderly fashion 12 years ago.

There are things about where we live now that have made life much easier than if we'd stayed, which I couldn't have predicted.

DS for example needs extra help at school for various reasons. Getting that help was simple - we had a choice between seeing the school psychologist or a psychologist of our choice, then once the report was written the school had a meeting with us and put everything in place - the whole process took about 4 months.

There are other things about life abroad that have been unexpectedly better than the UK, and which make it unlikely that we'll ever go back.

None of them have anything to do with Brexit or anti-immigrant feeling or anything like that - they're more just about day to day life. Basic things like there being much less traffic, doctor's appointments being easier to get, teachers having smaller class sizes and hence being more able to actually teach, people generally being helpful and neighbourly, supermarkets being much less busy... stuff that just makes life more pleasant and less stressful.

@MountainPeakGeek compared to London it's a bargain! :D

Ok, so that's an exaggeration. Property is less expensive, but many things are more expensive. Our food bill, for one! And property tax is no joke, but that is a part of our mortgage so we don't think about it (too much.)

The difference is it was possible here to have enough to live on AND have enough disposable income to save a deposit. We are living substantially the same lifestyle we did in the UK, but the salary seems to go further out here.

OP never came back to expand on “royal drama”.

OP never came back to expand on “royal drama”.

I suppose it seemed obvious to her that when the UK wasn't good enough for Meghan Markle, we were all going to have to 'flee', too.

Canapes 😂

I was thinking OP was expecting a Game of Thrones event where we’d all have to go to war for our candidate!