Dh says the U.K is f***** and he never wants to go back

[Chippednailtoepolish]

These were his words this morning.

We live abroad in a place where a lot of people are coming to live, escaping the uk and America.
He says with everything on the news, the way it's going and what the people coming to where we are tell him, that we'd be mad to return.
Is he being realistic? I want to return to be with family desperately and have a strange feeling that I need to do it soon

Would we be mad to return at this time? If yes, then when!

Yes but would YOU be moving to where they are and very happy?? It’s like pulling teeth

Eh? I was saying I personally would never want to live in Dubai?! It just doesn't suit me

These issues may seem exaggerated to you but you have to accept that to many it’s every day life. It’s very dependent on where you live but in some areas immigration, crime, education and the NHS are huge problems for people.

You agreed with that poster that the whole of the Middle East is hideous.

We really don’t need these attitudes here, consider if you’d be a good fit.

The UK sells only 1% of Israel's total defense imports.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar buy much more, but they're allies who help maintain peace in the middle east (despite dubious links to Hamas).

We also give £375 million in aid each year to countries in the middle east, mainly the Palestinians (116 million), Lebanon (15 million), Syria and Yemen (11 million) and over £20 million allocated specifically to Middle Eastern programs that tackle the root causes of irregular migration, focusing on skills training, job opportunities, and local community stability. (None to Israel, by the way - their gdp per person is about 50% higher than the UK)

The UK is fantastically generous and responsible towards other countries. To a fault.

Attitudes towards women are hideous to be fair.

You should be starting a thread in relationships Op

Your DH is never going to change his mind. So all this debating with mumsnetters is a bit pointless. Your family live in Cornwall and love it. That’s where you’d move to. So you just need to decide whether you want to start looking in to the logistics of divorcing DH and how that works with your child OR sucking up life where you are

Perhaps it’s not enough and it needs to be more.

The UK is fantastically generous and responsible towards other countries

Er, no, that £375m pa is pennies compared to what the UK earns arming the world.

You are who you associate with.

Millionaires are decamping from Norway now. Switzerland and Portugal being favoured countries. It's not just British opting to up sticks.

But the world population has doubled in the last 50 years. There are places way more over-populated than the UK (or any other western country), and those people are going to spread out.

Where would you go that you feel is tolerant and not bigoted?

This is correct. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmbmkgb-10y?countrycode=bx

This is the UK gilt treasury market. It's currently above 5%.

Interest rates are going to stay high for a long while yet. Inflation is not going away. In the meantime, our debt interest payments go up and up. That number, at 5% will continue upwards, the more spending Andy Burnham announces.

There is no money left, just a huge amount of debt.

There are so many problems we aren't facing, not least the interest payments we must make on the debt the government has borrowed on our behalf, which costs an annual £110 billion.

We owe £3 trillion pounds and it keeps increasing every second.

There is no money to spend on schools, hospitals, services for the public. We are extremely fucked and no one wants to grasp the nettle.

Healthcare is way better in Spain. Yes you pay but what you pay for, you get a decent service. If I could switch out of the UK to a Spanish payment model, I would do it in a heartbeat.

UK has a massive problem with mental health of young people now, with something like 20% suffering from some kind of mental disorder. It's frightening what going to school does to a child in the UK.

Spain also has better weather.

The risk for Spain is climate change IMHO and a very socialist government currently...

Look, if you miss your family come home. But in terms of long term good life aspects, I'd say Spain wins.

Deleted as I realised OP had answered the question (eventually)

Why not if shes British? Lots of people come into the country and gain access to the NHS who arnt British

Unfortunately the country is divided and there will be no coming together in unity to collectively solve problems.

We have been pumped the message for years that "diversity is our strength " when in fact unity is our strength. The country is divided on workers vs non workers, religion, ethnicity, left v right etc etc.

An interesting example is Japan which facing an ageing population had decades of low economic growth rather than opt for the import of cheap labour from other countries to prop up their economy.

As a result there is unity of culture within Japan so that when the tidal wave happened the country came together to help those affected. In the UK and much of Western Europe countries are simply too fragmented into different groups/ factions to do anything like this.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand," Abraham Lincoln 1858

Gullible, lol the left believe a man can be a woman for goodness sake. What hope have our kids got in this shit show where kids are indoctrinated at schools and left wing universitys. Excuse us for wanting kids to be brought up in a normal family unit, mum and dad working. What horror. It seemed they clapped thier hands when Charlie kirk got a bullet. Hypocrites and you talk about racism. You are the worst, you assume black people are too stupid to vote or carry ID. Malcolm X had it right about white liberals.

Dh is right

Where you live 💐

I lived abroad for almost 10 years. Came back to raise children here. I'm in the South West. Rather than relying on what you are hearing, if it is crime you are most worried about, you can look up the data for the areas you think you might move towards. British media is very down on Britain. I feel like things have got harder for young people then when I was younger but I'm still happy and grateful to live here. I think it's hard trying to compare very broad criteria such as national crime stats against very narrow but important criteria such as do you want to live near parents and extended family.

I think OP is saying that she & DH & DC live in Portugal or Spain or both.

My understanding is that those countries both have high youth unemployment, in Spain kids have to attend school compulsory at age 3, there are critical water shortages, much lower wages than UK, recent wildfires, super hot summers, economic challenges, extremist political parties... they have their own issues.

Spiteful? 😂 I speak from the lived experience of a Danish friend whose family moved to Germany for work and who were treated rudely whenever they came back to Denmark because the assumption was they had gone abroad to avoid Danish tax rates. You are an absolute idiot if you think people wouldn’t behave in a hostile fashion. History shows otherwise. Even recent history - there was enough comment about people coming back from Dubai suddenly when the US bombed Iran and Iran reacted to know that there is plenty of scope for hostile behaviour of all sorts when “patriots” feel others have not been “patriotic” in some way.

We moved from the UK, not for political reasons or because we hate the place. The longer we are away and the more visits back we have the less we want to return. There are many reasons but the main one by far is how well the kids are doing in state school here. They also have opportunities open to them that would not be so in the same way in the UK. The consistent theme from our friends there is that we did the right thing at the right time. It makes me a little sad and is not what I expected but none of us want to return. The kids are horrified when the question comes up. Nowhere is perfect, but for now I honestly feel that where we are is the better choice for us. I don't know that the UK is F....d, and I'm not angry but I'd say consider all things before leaping back. Good luck with whatever you decide.

The old saying is that "The United States is a great place if you are rich, tough if you are middle class and terrible if you're poor, whereas Europe is a great place if you are poor, tough if you are middle class and terrible if you are rich".

I imagine that Dubai is very similar to the US in this respect.