To think it’s shocking how bad Britain has fallen apart compared to other European counties

[TheColourofspring]

I am in Spain at the moment in one of the big cities. It’s clean, modern, well maintained. Transport is cheap, food is cheap, healthcare seems to work pretty well (from talking to local). Parks are noticeably well maintained- even saw park keepers! Clean & tidy.

Pensions higher, if you lose your job you get a portion of your salary in unemployment benefits while you look for another and there are no penalties. Based on the premise that if you have paid in, you will get looked after if you are in need.

I am not saying it’s perfect- no country is but it was the same when I was in France last summer.

In Britain, everything is underfunded and close to the edge. Schools, the NHS, local authorities are all at breaking point. My local parks look shabby & there is very little maintenance. Roads have pot holes. Yesterday I read an article about pharmacies being the latest at ‘crisis’ point with major drug shortages (thanks to brexit). Queues at borders, people can’t heat or eat properly, food banks, housing is ridiculous for many people.

I think it’s just so noticeable when you go to other places just how run down Britain is.

Finding it shocking and a bit depressing - like I said, all countries have their issues but I think Britain really has been pillaged by the tories & Brexit really is a disaster.

@verdantverdure - the UK has not resolved the issue of regulatory alignment with the EU.

Until then, the UK is in Hotel California; it can check out any time it likes, but it can never leave...

@Crikeyalmighty - it is one of the perverse elements of Brexit that, if you were motivated by racism then actually the UK stands to be more racially diverse post Brexit than before.

The current patterns of migration are from India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

We do not suddenly have huge numbers of Australians or NZ or migration from other developed economies as we did with the EU.

India are pressing the UK for working visas as part of their deal with us, for example.

it is one of the perverse elements of Brexit that, if you were motivated by racism then actually the UK stands to be more racially diverse post Brexit than before

I remember guy on tv talking about how it will mean less of "telhem indians".... I still wonder hpw people like that function in life... Probs confused commonwealth and EU or I don't know

@Anxioys absolutely. I have a co working desk in a centre where a company deals with visas - it is full all day long with families from those countries- and they aren't all rocket scientists either as was implied by Brexiteers. It's rare I encounter in the lift a Polish girl or a kiwi.

They would relish the challenge. A new Tory think tank : A British Europe. I can see it all now. Led by Mark Francois MP.

Might need a bit more work on the details. Tories took us in! Tories yanked us out . Who else can do the job? Of course it will have to wait on their inevitable victory once Labour have struggled to clean up their shit again.

@Abhannmor honestly nothing would suprise me these days!!

@Crikeyalmighty - such is the intellect of Brexiteers that they might struggle to recognize a rocket scientist, and if they did manage that, then said scientist would certainly fall into the category of expert which is so despised.

What you really want is migration from country with a grossly different level of development and incomparable qualification levels, but not working any more cheaply than local labour mind you, and you expect them all to go home at the end of the working visa they have, voluntarily, because the Home Office will be spending its money on hotels.

Useless cretinous simplistic fools

UK just seems dirty. I'm driving through Europe for three months holiday. Can't stay any longer due to no longer being part of EU.
Noticeable the lack of litter, more quality produce in the shops.
Oh and they still have clothing shops and department stores! Not everything is on line.
The restaurants, cafes etc are busy even in little back water places.
The general feeling I have of the UK is a feeling of decay.

Why not visit non-Schengen countries as part of your trip?

Anyway, I've found plenty of grotty places in Western Europe. I remember one railway station in Austria (might've been Graz) where there were so many fag ends dropped over the edge of the platforms that you could barely see the ballast. Some of the streets around Brussels Midi reminded me of Birmingham New Street. Graffiti-wise, how often do you see a train in the UK that has been sprayed? In Belgium in particular they're often absolutely plastered.

Grafitti on trains doesn't bother people.

What bothers people in the UK vs Europe is the poor quality of the trains vs Europe.

We don't really have high-speed trains in the UK (HS1 down in Kent goes a lot slower vs AVE/TGV) plus the quality of the trains up north (and their speed) is absolutely shocking.

When infrastructure has a 30 year life and you keep it for 50 years with minimal maintenance, you end up with assets that look poorly maintained and of low quality.

Thats the UK right now.

The main driver of this is lack of a coherent long-term industriaal strategy and a broken system for local planning permission. European countries do not have these issues in abundance.

None of this will be fixed in even 20 years.

Thats what many people don't fully grasp yet. They think the "bad times" will last a few years and them voila, back to a better life in UK. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What you are seeing in the UK now is only the initial stages of managed decline. The next 5 years will be much worse due to higher energy prices, ageing population (pensions), NIMByism, increased maintenance costs of capital assets, and higher healthcare costs (a huge one).

There will simply be no money to improve the infrastructure that when you combine with an increasing population means congestion (and thus more wear and tear).

There is little point in living in a country like the UK for 10 years if you can go to Europe or US/Canada/Australia and live in a country not going through this kind of managed decline. This is specially true if you have small children as well. It is damaging to their development to be in the UK right now. Its as simple as that, and you can wait out the major problems and return after 10+ years if the situation does indeed improve enough in that time frame.

Teajenny7
I'm driving through Europe for three months holiday.
The restaurants, cafes etc are busy even in little back water places.

Obviously not going well everywhere;

Aug 17 2023 (Reuters) - Bankruptcy declarations in the European Union reached the highest level since 2015 in the second quarter of this year, driven by increases in the accommodation and food services sectors...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/bankruptcies-eu-highest-since-2015-eurostat-says-2023-08-17/

I don't idolise Europe as the pinnacle of social marvels, and I am not an enthusiast for the Brussels version of trying to legislate for yesteryear's technology: it was the main reason I voted for Brexit, so the rules were not contrived to strangle emergent technology. However, IMO, Europe has through two millennia of conflict and strife achieved a very appealing balance of open to new and respect/acknowledgement for history.

I do get a bit antsy when the "all welcome" gang want to bring in millions of cheap labourers with antediluvian notions about women. And even more cross that they are not heading for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, which need the labour. The Gulf states don't welcome them because they understand that too many economic migrants are destabilising for the society they are planning. Expatriates go home, having earned the money they want. They are not planning on importing their parents, siblings, cousins and uncles via family reunification law. No mate, you are here to do a job. It sounds harsh, but most of my social circle met in the Middle East as 20-something expats. We went to do the project we were engaged to complete, for tax free salaries, and then we came back. You can't apply for citizenship: it simply is not an option.

It's not even an option if you were born in the country. My great niece, born in May this year, will not qualify for KSA citizenship, despite being delivered in a hospital in Riyadh.

@EffortlessDesmond you see that's exactly one of the reasons I didn't vote for Brexit as I just knew they would need to plug gaps with labour market from developing nations and so it has come to pass bringing whole families with them and I don't think will be going anywhere whereas young people from the EU tended to come for a while and many move on and didn't tend to bring a whole clan in more recent years. The way I saw it was with the EU it worked both ways too, whereas I don't want to work or retire in India- even if it's an option- so it seems a one way advantage for those coming in. It's never going to be an option for places like US etc-

When I read posts like this I realise just how gigantically screwed the UK is.

You clearly had no idea how destructive (and wrong) your vote was. Comparing the UK to SA & UAE is icing on the cake (hint they have these things called oil and gas. The UK has doesnt have natural resources like them to export. It is a mostly service-based who needs labour).

It was obvious to the "experts" that EU migration would be replaced by massive non-EU migration due to labour shortages given that the natives do not want to do those jobs (social care for example).

And that is precisely what is happening.

So congratulations. The decline of the UK is on you.

I am sorry to say that I voted the wrong way (as it has turned out) but it was not for the "nasty" reasons. I voted against the momentum of the Brussels gravy train and the stifling of innovative ideas, and I still think that the EU is inclined to smother ideas and reluctant to embrace the future to cocoon the past, but events are racing us past that post. The whole Microsoft Activision bother, for example. But the EU does get the importance of infrastructure. Build it, and prosperity follows. Victorian Britain did the same 150 years ago, and we have forgotten that investment is important, in favour of paying universal credits.

One article resonated with me in particular, an interview with "a senior EU source" who suggested that democracy would be improved if a degree was needed to vote. At 67, I am the first person in my family to have a degree, but the notion that my parents, now nearing 90 (neither suffering from any mental frailty, despite their advanced years) one a full SRCN, the other holding a military commission as a pilot with 5000+ flying hours should be disenfranchised for lacking a degree... in all honesty, it made me angry enough to vote to spit in that functionary's face. And it was the wrong choice.

One article resonated with me in particular, an interview with "a senior EU source" who suggested that democracy would be improved if a degree was needed to vote.

I would like to see that article and understand how anyone, let alone someone apparently educated believed that could actually happen ...

Patronising or what @TheThinkingGoblin ? I've already said I think I was wrong, but I still dont think I was far wrong. The EU is closed minded and wants to dictate and regulate, and so southern Europe has horrendous youth unemployment statistics, worse than 30% in Spain and Italy, because there is no light touch casual ease into working, experience, from which to apply for a better job.

It was published in The Times during spring 2016.

@TheThinkingGoblin , what is so terribly bad about going overseas to work, in construction, to create the infrastucture for a country which doesn't have the skills or the population to build what is needed? Our generation drew the maps of those countries in the late 70s and early 80s and they are still in use today. Please do explain the basis of your moral superiority?

@TheThinkingGoblin
Grafitti on trains doesn't bother people.
Have you done a survey, or are you just speaking for yourself here? It makes the travelling experience miserable and off-putting. It makes the network look crime-ridden and makes it feel like the sort of place that you'd get mugged or sexually assaulted.

What bothers people in the UK vs Europe is the poor quality of the trains vs Europe.

I get the impression that your experience of European trains is rather limited, maybe only to the odd TGV, or perhaps a holiday in Switzerland. Try some of the TER services and see just what SNCF is like away from the flagship high speed lines. There's still plenty of 1970s/1980s Corail coaches eking out a retirement in the regions, with manual doors that don't have any form of central locking. Elsewhere there are loads of Eurofima coaches from 1977 running about with similar facilities (though I love sitting in a compartment, it's like the olden days, even if I was less than impressed by the smoke wafting down the corridor in one country that still has smoking compartments). Accessibility leaves a lot to be desired. In the UK, it's illegal to operate a train that deprives a disabled passenger of any of the facilities available to everyone else (basic things like toilets).

Travel on a DB ICE and you'll probably encounter the word "später" - on my last trip to Germany I ended up two hours late at my destination because of cancellations, late-running and resulting missed connections. I also once had to sprint down four flights of stairs in Berlin Hbf to ensure that I made my train to Köln after the regional service I got from Cottbus was terminated short at Erkner (instead of working through to Brandenburg) and I had to wait for the S Bahn. I've also found myself wedged under someone's armpit on a regional service. Generally I see little to differentiate DB from the UK railway - even advertised trains vanishing from the timetable with no notification.

Don’t self flagellate too much. AI is going to change things again and labour may well be a lower concern

The only way there will be change is for us to make a change.

Stop voting for the same self-serving tosspots, and then moaning about it (not you, op).

Sadly, it's difficult to vote for anyone not on the ballot paper, and my past is far too chequered to qualify as respectable!

Stifles innovation? look at the Solar plants in Spain, the HS rail networks, their Pharma, Airbus, Horizon?
You don't get world beating infrastructure by not embracing infrastructure.

I think perhaps you were slightly uninformed when you cast your vote.

There are almost 1m Ethiopians working in Saudi, Foreigners make up around 40% of the pop. at approx 14m, almost as many Somalis in UAE as there are in the UK approx 100k

SA isn't somewhere i'd ever go to but to say eco migrants don't work in SA (or other Gulf states) is incorrect.... and yes i know they are exploited as they often are in UK/Europe too.