People leaving London and now the UK for good

[Musicaldilemma]

We are in Outer London. Ten sets of friends have moved out of London to other parts of the U.K. over the summer. Now many other families are in the process of emigrating to The Middle East, various part of Asia, 2 NZ families who have been here 20 years trying to go home and 3 Aussie families (1 parent Australian). It is definitely much more than usual. It seems everyone who is rich enough and able to is trying to leave the country for good. It got me thinking to when I was a young successful professional - I think I may have tried to leave too. I am worried we are going to end up with an unhealthy, elderly population with all the young, successful people propping the economy back gone. I think the latest rounds of news have broken quite a lot of people I know who have international options, it looks worse than immediately after Brexit. Is it just my friendship group and the people I know at work? (Lawyer?) Or are others observing this too?

trulydelicious
I don't get it. They should be ashamed

Why should people be 'ashamed' for not thinking the UK is a great place to be at present? Brexit has exposed a lot of things that are cause for shame, and Covid has exposed the incompetence and corruption of the current government.

You mention 'pessimism'. Recognising the faults of government/one's country has nothing to do with 'pessimism', but is a marker of being able to think critically and independently. What's the point of existing in a state of Pollyanna-like denial when your country is going to shit in front of your eyes?

Loads of international families at my DC’s school. I’m not aware of any leaving the U.K. There are, however, loads of new children whose families have moved out of London - we are approx 40 miles from London. I wouldn’t be surprised though if loads of overseas people that previously worked in the service industry in London leave the U.K. for good. What is keeping them here when there are no restaurants, hotels etc open? As for my own children, well we’ve always wanted them to gain the qualifications and experience that will allow them to move abroad if they want. Covid hasn’t changed that.

To go back to the OP, working in academia I have seen several colleagues going back to Europe post-Brexit and a couple of Brits leaving: one for Germany and one for NZ.

It’s brexit. Such a shame for the future of the UK. Lots of financial services and company hq leaving and taking jobs with them, see Coca Cola as the latest.

[quote trulydelicious]@LunaHeather

I imagine she was thinking more about people who have left to get more space after lockdown hit so badly

Wait until the usual UK bashers see the thread and jump in full force to rip the country apart with their hurtful comments[/quote]
Hurtful to whom? You personally? The Queen?

I have dual nationality and would leave in minutes but DC's father is here and won't move, and though he might agree it would be the wrong thing for them, so I'm stuck.

The racism revealed around the Brexit vote (yes, I appreciate that there are Brexiteers who are not racist, but that was the thrust for many) made it very clear to me that my mixed race family is tolerated at best by many. The well-paid and high growth industry I work in is fast moving overseas, jobs here are drying up - same.for DH's. My sister is a healthcare professional and is looking at leaving to one of the many countries where she can earn far more with far less stress than struggling in an NHS that was a mess long before covid.

My home country had tougher lockdowns early and so has far lower rates and a better economy than the UK.

If these comments are hurtful to you, then maybe you can take that energy to go and take action to support anti-racism and free trade in the country you love, because they're not mean, they're factual.

Wait until the usual UK bashers see the thread and jump in full force to rip the country apart with their hurtful comments

Things to despise about this country:
It's incredibly wealthy, yet we have food banks.
It's incredibly wealthy, yet we have people literally freezing to death on the streets.
We elected a joker for a PM.
One of the highest COVID fatality rates in the world (yay! Let's wave our union flags!)

Sorry if my saying that 'hurts' some people.

Don't know any personally but I should imagine a lot who are here for work have no choice but to return home if there is no work for them.

It has crossed my mind to go to Covid free state as dual passport but I have a yr 11 which makes me reconsider. His friends, school is great.

Also issue of job. Where do your friends get work? Or do they not need to

We will leave. All dual nationals which helps. Life has been chaotic for us recently other than due to Covid so it won't be immediate as the DC need some stability but moving is in the pipeline for sure. We can sell up here and afford a much nicer lifestyle in Oz or NZ.

I'm in London. I don't know anyone who is leaving or is planning to.

We are on the fence. If I was solely making the decision we would have left last year. DH is concerned about leaving elderly relatives.

Sustained quantitative easing, increasing costs, the impact of brexit and the management of the pandemic are my key reasons.

I still want to be in London and can’t wait for things to change. Hopefully summer will be much better.

I feel I’m battling through it and I can see how nice life is where it’s largely normal but I’m not ready to uproot family.

It's our experience, too.

We left London, moved to the coast and now we are in the process of moving to Lancashire. Our rent here is £2000 a month. For a bigger house up North, we are looking at £850 until we buy something.

We have two friends in London from Greece. Several of their friends have gone home for good and they were lamenting this week that it's just them left now. They can't go back because their professions don't exist in Greece. It's very sad.

I’m in London. Not heard of anyone moving at all, not a single person.

I agree that some of it may be due to people re-evaluating their priorities/lifestyles due to Covid. In the last six months, a couple of my colleagues (in the South East) have moved to Spain to follow their dreams to open up small businesses/farms.

The more people who leave, the fewer houses we'll have to build all over our countryside then.

I chat to local EAs a lot

They said lettings are especially busy. I think if you're childfree and can live somewhere more suited to lockdown, then temporarily moving out would certainly be a plan.

@aninchandahalf

The more people who leave, the fewer houses we'll have to build all over our countryside then.

Won't it be more if more people want to live the countryside long term?

The more people who leave, the fewer houses we'll have to build all over our countryside then.

The more people who leave, the more we will require immigrants, especially given our aging population. Where will we house them? Or do you just think our population will drop dramatically?

My experience is the other way around. One couple came back from Spain because they have elderly parents here. Another (lawyer) friend is returning from the Middle East because it wasn't a great place to be in the summer during lockdown. A few work colleagues may move from Hong-Kong to here.

My friend has left London back to Australia, but her visa was due to run out soon anyway, she came to experience working elsewhere and was going to move to another country for work but covid happened that stopped that, she can go back as they have a more normal life in Aus. So I dont blame her. Her reasons are not because of brexit.

People get a weird and spooky kick out of being pessimistic and bashing the UK, everything British and their own people on MN

Yes, especially middle class liberal progressive professionals. Maybe after Brexit they're have trouble getting servants?

Wait until the usual UK bashers see the thread and jump in full force to rip the country apart with their hurtful comments

I genuinely don't understand why you would find it hurtful if people said that they no longer consider Britain to be a good place to live, or that they think the situation will deteriorate due to Brexit, an incompetent government etc. To whom is that hurtful, and why?

Surely, people are merely expressing their own views, based on their own observations and experience. You can choose to agree with them or disagree, but how does it hurt you if they arrive at a different conclusion. If you're convinced that the UK is a great place to live and that the future looks fine and dandy, then crack on and enjoy it, while other people make decisions about what is right for them.

I’m staying, and don’t know anyone who’s leaving. There were a few around the time of the first Brexit vote, but these were people who were working here from overseas.
I’ve lived in 2 other European countries, and there are things to be learned in both, some better and some worse than what we have here.
Even if I wanted to leave my job, I wouldn’t right now. The NHS, and the country needs people who are prepared to work hard for the benefit of us all, or we’ll never get out of this. If that makes me old fashioned, so be it.
Other people make their choices, and good luck to them, but to my mind, you can’t change something if you leave. And my family, friends, colleagues and patients, and our wider society deserve more than that. Whether you agree or disagree with the government, the welfare of each one of us is bigger than that. I can only do my bit, and keep hoping for light at the end of the tunnel.

I left Cheshire in 2006. For us the UK under Blair was becoming too much like the nth American state. DD was 7/8 and so it made sense to move then or else have to wait 10 years until she'd finished school.

It's been a mixed experience. DD ended up doing much better in school than she would have ever done in the UK - her primary school had had a bad ofsted report the year she was born and at a local independent school she became a school refuser. She now has a fantastic job in bilingual after sales support working for a multi-national company in Ireland.

Property-wise we lost out big-time. I've also been completely screwed in a foreign divorce, and XH became an alcoholic.

Where I live individuals can be OK, but there is a tremendous amount of racism/xenophobia which has got even worse with Brexit, together with govt agencies misinterpreting the law after the vote in 2018. In 2018 I was told, in English, to fuck off out of the country by 2 blokes in a café and that I had no right to speak 'their' language as well as I did.

Would I do it again? Yes, I would.

However, leaving an abusive marriage to a violent alcoholic, when you don't have enough knowledge of the law, in a foreign country isn't something I'd wish on anyone.

I'm not in a position to come back financially, and the treatment I need for a long-standing health problem is no longer available in the UK.

The region I live in is very troubled, dating back to the war and its aftermath, and I don't think that's going to change. Anyway, for better for worse it's home.