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.

@HonoraBridge the comment about speaking the language. Yes, but when we went to live abroad we had basic language for everyday stuff and developed our fluency once there.

There are a lot of places that have English speaking facilities, I don't recommend that you just stick to these as you miss out on so much by not immersing yourself in the language/culture, but you can get by with basics to start, depending on where you go.

Alternatively, a lot of people are looking at commonwealth/former commonwealth countries where English is the main language.

I read an article recently about (I think mainly) mid thirties to mid forties looking at going abroad to live, e.g. Canada, not because it was cheaper in terms of taxation etc, but because the services they contribute to actual work and are available.

Migration is definitely on the increase.

It didnt hit us as bad just a bit of a shake but all good.
But has hit elsewhere bad i have friends in myanmar and its awful.
We are doing everything we can at the moment to help the best way we can.
One of our friends cant find her dog another we have had no contact with but hope he`s okay but we dont know as of yet and one that cant go home because they dont know how safe the building is so have are been staying at mine and are very welcome to do so.
Ive been looking after my neighbours 2 kids since it happened as they both had to go asap to find and hope both of their parents are ok they are ok.
So yes its all going on.
It dose not and will not change my mind about coming back to the uk as this is my home and theses people are my family and have been for 22 year.

Remember the amount of people trying to get in, the grass isn't always greener

Are you saying these cities have the equivalent opioid crisis and tent cities as the US?

Can you show in figures or an article where they are equivalent?

London has around 12,000 rough sleepers per YEAR on a population of 9,000,000
https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/housing-and-land/mayors-priorities-londons-housing-and-land/homelessness/rough-sleeping

Seattle has around 16,000 rough sleepers per NIGHT on a population of 750,000
https://seattle.gov/mayor/one-seattle-initiatives/homelessness-action-plan

Anybody trying to compare the tent city in the grounds of the hospital along I5
with any city in the UK is kidding themselves

Have no idea on the like by like. I don’t live in the UK or US. But if anyone in the UK doesn’t think there is a growing problem, they are incredibly naive.

Growing problem could apply to anywhere. Canada too.

Given the focus on the opioid crisis lately in the US based on pharma and outcomes we don’t have the same levels.

Tent cities aren’t as much of a thing here either.

The U.K. has issues, of course it does, but I wouldn’t equate US to U.K. on those specific things, maybe Canada is closer to US than here not sure.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14448881/amp/Migrant-camp-problem-plaguing-Britain-Ireland-Tent-cities-pop-busy-tourist-centres-populated-young-men-Romania-councils-forced-wade-red-tape-remove-pop-hours-later.html

I saw the tents in Dublin when I visited in June last year, there was a line of them set up along the river full of men sitting around. Quite a few had mobile phones and the tents were all the same kind like they had been handed out by a charity. A few weeks before I visited, there had been trouble and some Irish lads had destroyed tents by throwing them into the river. It said there had been at least 3 times as many as the amount I saw so not sure where the others had set up. There was tension around that area.

In the UK, I've seen the odd homeless person around my town, known drug takers who everyone knows and gets them a cup of coffee and a sausage roll from Greggs etc. They have a scruffy tent and dont seem to accept the help on offer.

I've not seen the East Europeans on the street for years around my area. They used to be on street corners selling the big issue. If they are setting up in London, Birmingham etc - why isnt the government sending them back to the EU?

Paris is an eye opener, but for me I was shocked when I visited Brussels and saw loads of immigrant men sleeping on the streets. In Athens I saw beggars weaving amongst the traffic - that was very sad. Girls and women too.

The tents in Seattle are US citizens
unable to afford to live in the city
but in need of medical care at the hospital
some of the people camping between the freeway and the hospital
do so to get access to their dialysis appointments

migrant rough sleeping
and citizen rough sleeping are rather different issues

Tent cities imply hundreds and those in that link are at about thirty people.

Ireland might have bigger ones, US too. You’d need to show the numbers are equal.

Canada might have some that are bigger than here not sure.

Edit to add we usually use hotels which depending on how people feel is good or costs a fortune at a few million a day, rather than tent cities. Not sure what other countries do with that.

Oh come on. Vancouver? There's nowhere like East Hastings Street in England.

Birmingham

@sunshineheart hope your friends are ok x

What are things like in your home country if you don’t mind me asking?

I think about moving a lot but then think are things really better in other places? And maybe they really are! But I’m always stumped as to where to move and where would be a better quality of life (and where would actually accept me as both me and DH were born in the UK!)

Looking back, the world has gone to shit since the banking crisis of 2008.
This lead to Tory austerity, which had a big hand in Brexit. Then we had covid, then the Ukraine war, then Trump mark two (I believe not unrelated to the impoverishment of the American people after the banking crisis).

The bankers and billionaires are all doing great though. Their money is massively up.

@Helterskelterthroughtheday please don’t do what a lot of people do - live abroad when they’re younger and paying tax, then come back to the UK to benefit from free healthcare when they’re pensioners. If you’re going, please stay away.

Hope you enjoy it Helter. My inlaws moved to France but could not settle and returned within 2 years, the way of life is different to the UK and what they enjoyed at first, later infuriated them.

But sunshine is a big pull for some people.

Where I live in the Shires, I get everything you mention above apart from the sun which is not south of France temps! Also I will not knock the NHS, had fabulous treatment from them. Plus private treatment is an option if I desired it.

Bearing in mind that I've paid tax and NI for over 30 years and worked in the NHS all my working life, I'm not sure your 'advice' is particularly relevant....

It's not Tory austerity that did it. Not really. If it was other countries would not be facing many of the same issues.

It is the bank crisis that's the primary cause. It meant that a generation shoved their debts onto the next generation and that the billionaires could capitalise. We have politicians telling us that no one saw it coming which is a flat out lie - we did and planned and considered it when we bought our first house in 2007. We saw it coming ourselves but also had a friend working in the stock market at the time who actively warned us.

This was then further capitalised on by these disaster capitalists with Brexit and COVID. The UK has always had a greater gap in pay between lowest paid workers and the highest incomes and that has affected policy making - a lot of it is home owners versus non homeowners in the UK.

The difference is particularly stark in the UK for one particular reason can be seen in an age divide which is roughly between 42 and 47. It's essentially 'did you buy a house before 2008?' If you did you are financially much better off.

Trump is trying to trigger more economic crisis now - this suits disaster capitalists. That's a lot of what all the tariff stuff is about. This is why billionaires are flocking to him.

They know there is a generational tipping point otherwise that approaches where younger lower paid workers outnumber those who are of pensionable age. For years across Europe pension have been prioritised and isn't affordable because it was the vote winner with the boomer generation - it created a system that's on the verge of going bust which ensures there is demand for change regardless of everything else and regardless of other crisis. These crisis have make this more inevitable and stark though.

There was going to be a recognition it's the billionaires from 2008 that were the problem.

They wanted to prevent that from forming politically to protect and maximise their own profits. They don't want international taxations that are placed on them. They saw the banking crisis coming and they see the demographic crisis coming and are acting accordingly.

We've got friends and a life in France having had a home there for a number of years so know what we're getting into. It's a completely different way of life, nothing like the UK, so I can see why some people wouldn't settle.

I've lived all over the UK, and there really isn't anything comparable - I don't mean better or worse, just different. Life is much slower here, I like that everything stops for lunch, that people have time, that where we are it's usual to grow your own fruit and veg and most of all for everyone to help each other out.

Thats what we are doing tbh. Moving abroad for a few years in a place much better for salaries, schools, saving. Will continue NI contributions and move back in a few years.
We've worked for years already and seen our quality of life decline and public sector jobs become horrendous. Why wouldnt we leave?

I feel if reform get in at the next election I will be desperate to get out and just go and live somewhere like a greek island if possible!

they can do what they like! Who are you to decide who stays away and for how long or when they come back 😂😂