Seriously thinking about leaving the UK - AIBU?

[HonoraBridge]

I love the UK in many ways but it has been going downhill for at least 20 years and it feels as if the speed of the decline is accelerating. I no longer see a happy, or particularly safe, future here. For the first time in my life, I am very seriously thinking about leaving the UK and that feeling gets stronger day by day. When I mention this to friends, many are feeling the same way. YANBU - you are right to think seriously about leaving the UK. YABU - the UK is a still a great country to live in and you are being unreasonable to want to leave.

Go for it. Have you lived abroad before?

Where would you consider?

Where do you think is/ might be better?

And could you afford to be there?

This isnt an AIBU topic. It's a complex question. To begin with, where can you go? What skills do you have?

It all depends on where you want to go and what sort of life you would have there.

We feel that way also. DH is a Brit I am not. We have lived abroad and in the UK since 2005. We are just waiting in theory for our DS to finish school- but we may jump before that. Maybe to my home country. Maybe to the country DH was born as he is a dual citizen. We wished to be here forever. I called the UK my 'death country' as in the country I would die on.

No more. We are net contributers with a disabled child and feel pummelled completely.

If it weren't for the kids schools we would be seriously considering it for the reasons you have stated. I think we are in for an even bumpier ride over the next decade. DH works in another country and i am a SAHM so if the kids schooling was more mobile and we had those options then i think we would do it.
The UK has a lot of potential to be great so i am optimistic as i also love this country. People need to do what is best for them though and if i was young i would go.

Am encouraging my own to DC to leave.
The country is a mess and with net migration massively rising and the ‘benefit’ culture rife, people who actually work for a living are being taken for mugs.

Where though? Germany , France are both economically expected to go backwards this year. The rest of Europe and those two have increased issues with terrorism. Plus issues should Germany struggle
Spain is still basically an economy based on tourism and has had several major weather issues.
The middle East is a powder keg and it's expensive to move there
The far East has been today hit by a massive earth quake. Thailand which is the usual destination doesn't have the most stable political situation having had 20 constitutions and several military could
Aus and new Zealand are fave, if you meet the criteria to get in...and it's a long long way to visit family
The us? With trump?
So Canada...it's well it's canada?

I swore I'd leave the morning the Brexit result came in. I did in 2021. I don't think I'm ever going back that's for sure.

Agree. My eldest two kids were born in NZ and I'm hoping they may be able to somehow be able to go there or Australia.

The country's screwed - it's going to take generations and a full-on revolution to recover from years of being hollowed out by the Tories. Nothing good's going to happen under Labour - sadly they're proving to be just another bunch of freeloading, billionaire-appeasing grifters. Run fast run far, op!

Where did you go if i may ask @AlisonDonut ?

Ah .... the monthly 'UK bashing' thread!

Good luck with that. (Leaving the UK!) One question... How do you know your country of choice will want you though?

Bit presumptuous to assume that you can just stroll off and make a new life just anywhere @HonoraBridge

You won't leave. I will bet my house on that. The vast majority of UK bashers, (who were born and raised her,) who claim they're off to another country as the UK is so 'shit,' are all talk......

Weird how the UK is so 'despised' by some of its own people, yet 1000s and 1000s of people from other countries, seem to be desperate to come here and stay. Go figure!

The UK has been through worse times than this. These kinds of threads make me roll my eyes, seriously. 🙄

If my daughter wasn't disabled, I'd leave in a shot.

Each to their own I say! I was born in East Anglia lived all my adult life in London, and the first time I visited Scotland I instantly felt at home. Glasgow is like a perfect city, and Edinburgh is so photogenic and the Highlands are just stupidly lovely. Then I started getting the train up, omg the Scottish Borders are like the descriptions of Narnia and Archenland in CS Lewis.
I don't see the decline of the UK so much as an escalation of inequality for which I blame the English electorate for voting Tory so often since the 1950s. Same shit in most capitalist countries from what I can see, and obviously I would never move to an authoritarian state that doesn't have the rule of law.
But the nice thing about living in the UK is that we are a democracy so you, indeed anyone is free to leave, apart from citizens in prison of course.

It's been going downhill since 1979 and the start of a new and highly destructive political era. The results of which are too depressing to mention. Even a very good government would need many years to begin to turn things around. There are no magic cures for this level of damage.

Go for it OP.

The UK I live in still has a village pub and a parish council. We have neighbours who like each other, relatively little traffic, no parking issues. Farms, fields and trees and gardens.

I can run without being hassled, I can walk to the pub in the dark. The worst we have is a bit of graffiti. There are job vacancies.

I accept inner cities are not like that. So different people have different experiences.

As someone who has far flung family, life is quite hard in many countries, and some other countries don't want immigrants. I am quite bemused by the " Go for it" comments. It's like Brexit nevet happened!

This. ^

France.

And go where? That is a crucial part of the decision.

What is it with all these posts with these endless reams of self-justification for leaving the UK? Just go. You don’t need to do it via Flouncers’ Corner. People have been emigrating since the dawn of time. You don’t need to think the UK is a shit show to leave it, you can just fancy a new culture, a new climate, a new language. I left my home country the week I graduated from university.

I live in rural thailand in the countryside i left the uk and everything in it 22 year ago and nothing could make me want to come back.
I just woke up one day and thought fuck this im done.
I only took my back pack that was that i started over with nothing and it was so bloody worth it.
I now have a job a home friends that are like family.

The country's screwed - it's going to take generations and a full-on revolution to recover from years of being hollowed out by the Tories
@notprincehamlet

What form will this revolution take? Guillotines in town squares?
What income level will mean eradication?
Presumably all Tory MPs past and present will be for the chop.

AAahhh... my dream.

I am envious. One of my Dcs' dream is to study at the Sorbonne so that is my leaning as well. Athough my parents are in Australia and we might head in that general direction.