Meant to be moving to Dubai in 4 weeks

[Medesres]

We've been planning a move to Dubai for a while now. Dh's work has an office out there and it seemed like great opportunity to live abroad and experience sth different. I've got a couple of friends out there already too who love the lifestyle.

Watching the news for the past 24 hours and I'm really starting to question things. I had no idea how close to Iran it was and who knows what might happen next. Part of me is hoping it will all be resolved soon but hard to believe.

My friend who already lives there has spent the night sleeping in one room with her dh and kids scared of all the missile noises.

The UAE is near Iran, Iraq, Saudi. Not a huge newsflash that bit. As for the “glamour” of life in the UAE, I can see why some people might find that vision attractive. Those who govern the UAE have invested billions in selling that “dream”. It’s still a dream built on and maintained by slave labour. And inconveniently close to Iran, so will always be a hotspot in any conflict involving Iran. I wouldn’t move there, or go on holiday there, especially not with children. Hopefully your partner’s employer will give him a different option. I remember what it was like fleeing Saudi (where I lived because of my dad’s job) on the last flight out as the first Gulf war started. It was terrifying.

Why is that puzzling? Traders have always placed long and short trades based on geopolitical risk.

i know that, its more the ones who say omg why are they betting on war etc

The Foreign Office were only issuing alerts about travel to Dubai for the fun of it.

Really? Isabel Oakeshott, the partner of Reform UK's deputy Richard Tice, has been going on and on for the past year about how she moved out to Dubai with her children because of the VAT on private school fees - and how much safer and better it was than the UK. There have been plenty of articles in that timealso about young people moving there to make their fortune and bigging it up, plus TV programmes. If it was being called unsafe by the UK government you wouldn't have known. Obviously they are issuing warnings now.

It’s really NOT the case that “everyone wants to move there”.

This is true - not everyone wants to move there.

Did you not wonder why so many people really dislike it?

Around 240,000 Britons live in Dubai, and millions visit every year — that doesn’t indicate widespread backlash.

As a Brit who’s been going since 2018, I’ve never seen evidence that it’s broadly disliked. It’s fine to criticise aspects of it, but claiming it’s widely unpopular in the UK isn’t accurate.

You have to make a choice based on how the situation pans out and what it means for you and your family.

I lived in Dubai growing up; the first and second Gulf Wars happened whilst I was in school there. But the world is currently in turmoil and we have no idea what's going to happen next.

I’d like to think you’re underestimating how many people care about human rights abuses.

In parts of the UK, issues like knife crime, sexual assault, and car theft are ongoing problems.

Dubai isn’t crime-free, but the overall level of street violence and opportunistic crime is considerably lower.

A teenager in the UK will stab you for looking at them.

I wouldn’t move there, or go on holiday there, especially not with children.

Millions go there year on year with their children and have a lovely time. 😳 (post edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

This..

I suppose I am more comfortable with regional car theft than I am enslaved domestic workers being murdered, but perhaps I’m old fashioned that way.

At least reporting sexual assault is unlikely to result in me being arrested for indecent attire or behaviour.

being arrested for indecent attire

Majority of women dress exactly the same way they do here. Stop making stuff up.

I sure they do- that doesn’t mean police cannot arrest them for it if they choose.

There are numerous incidents of women reporting rape only to then be imprisoned for extra marital sex.

You know I’m not ‘making up’ public decency laws in the UAE

Don't go. I know of someone who has worked as a Consultant in the Oil and Gas Industry for years in Iraq and Iran.

He worked 12 hour shifts.And in both countries, he had a Security Guard/Soldier with a gun posted outside his Office for 24 hours a day .

I honestly can't see the conflict between solved any time soon. And can see it could easily proliferate.

What the hell does it matter who is funding the move to a potential 'war zone?🙄
Also it might come as a surprise but bombs and missiles aren't bothered by or redirected because there is 'insurance' in place! FFS!!🙄

It seems naive to move there I wouldn’t want to go and you won’t be able to anyway as things are.

No, they really don't! You must be living in some sort of bubble.

I don't think you'll be able to go but even if by some miracle you can, I don't think you should.

The UK got rich on the backs of slaves and slavery.

Hmm, they aren't having "a lovely time" at the moment.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3141z13go

Bit different ehen it was 200 years ago and it is the country you were born and brought up in and live in v country where it is happening now openly and you are choosing whether to go there.

Indeed! Plenty of us would never go there for a plethora of reasons.

It feels like a pile on. Everyone saying the same thing over and over again about how could she not have checked a map. She should've but she never so can we move on from that?

Don't get me wrong Dubai has always scared me - the way they treat foreign workers from developing nations, their strange legal system that once in a while seems to make an example of a foreigner eg. Marcus Farkhana. But I never really thought of it as dangerous in the sense of being a war zone. And I’ll admit when I moved to east Asia in my 20s, I didn’t check it out on a map until I was there.

OP if you can put the brakes on this I suggest you do so. Even if it means your partner has to go out himself initially until he’s able to come back to work in the UK.

Wait… Oakeshott lives in Dubai now? You couldn’t make it up!

I don’t get these anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim types who emigrate to Muslim countries.

And they still have a loud mouth about what’s going on in the UK. They are shameless.

She does indeed. And now she expects Keir Starmer to rescue her. But I don’t see why she can’t try her luck in a dinghy, she’s an immigrant after all. Why would we want all these tax dodgers back over here anyway.