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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

A Mix of Brexit, an aging population, massive underinvestment in basically everything, covid mishandling and huge debt means the UK is around year 0 of a lost decade. I will leave if I can.

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I moved from the UK to [redacted]. While I could not predict the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine I did expect things to get worse in the UK post-Brexit which is why when the UK voted to leave back in 2016 my wife and I started planning to move. It took a couple of years to get things all sorted and we moved in August 2018.

We are actually back in the UK this week visiting family who asked if we miss living here and my wife and I just looked at each other and said "nope!" in unison. It is hard to explain it in a short post here but the UK just doesn't feel "like home" to me anymore.

I am not saying [redacted] is perfect. But our quality of life is much higher in [redacted] than it was in the UK and we are both very happy we followed through and moved.

Don't worry! Move up here to Scotland. The SNP assures us that all our problems will be solved as soon as we are independent!

(Edit: I probably shouldn't have made this comment. Let's just say I am not disagreeing with you.)

Thank you for still making it.

I often make comments I feel I need to, and later succumb to the stupid social network reaction of "oh no 3 people downvoted it, surely that means 3 people hate me and no one agrees".

Sometimes things need to be said regardless.

I recently went to a small event for a friend, and among the 30-40 young professionals there, this was the resounding mood: the country is fucked and only getting worse, is there a way out? Just generally no one expects things to get better. Standard of living is going down the drain, building stability by buying a house comes with absurd cost.

I think we are heading for a tipping point. Public services are probably already past a point where staff quitting is piling more work on those left, resulting in more people quitting. I suspect there will be a terminal snowball which guts the NHS at least and leaves it unable to function (by design of the Tories, of course).

I suspect the brain drain will be similar. Young people don't want to live in some tax haven, they want a country that functions. Brexit has made it harder, but people will find a way eventually. People were talking Canada, the Netherlands, etc... (Notably for here, very much not the US which is seen as having all of the same problems the UK has).

On top of that, we have a zombie goverment with no solutions or urgency to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

And our political system basically guarantees the same people will be in charge until Jan 2025?! 2015 me would never have believed how rapidly things could fall apart.

I understand where you're coming from, but try not to get too pessimistic. The UK has made i through much worse and come out the other end.

Past success is not a good predictor. Probably the Roman senators at the end of the Roman Empire also thought "oh well, we've been dragging our feet lately, but somehow things will work out".

I would say the most likely outcome is a further diminishing of the UKs international importance, together with some risk of Scotland breaking apart.

None of the situations we face today are remotely close to the difficulty to those faced by the Romans at the end of the western empire

Since this is also related to higher energy prices, do you think the invasion on Ukraine is also a contributing factor? Although if that were the case, we’d also see as high of inflation in other European countries?

That's definitely a contributor, but, as you say, it's generally worse in the UK than in other large European countries. This whole thing is a bit of a perfect storm for the UK.

Have you heard of the plight of an even larger European country? Hint: it rhymes with Burmany.

It's bad in the UK, to imagine it's the worst in the UK vs Europe is to show your ignorance.

Germany's warning that inflation may hit or slightly exceed 10% by end of year, which, to be clear, is very bad, but is less bad than 18.6%.

It's definitely a contributing factor. The thing is, other nations just have to deal with high gas prices. The UK has to deal with high prices AND:

* being reliant on gas for both heat and power

* a collapsing pound driving prices higher in local currency

* no supply guarantee since we left the EU (we are now "at the end of the pipe")

* some of the most energy inefficient housing in Europe after decades of not investing or taking climate change seriously

* very high taxes, very low spending on poor people and a big deficit (so we have no room to bail out users)

* no domestic storage so we are just constantly exposed to spot prices

And that's just the issue around Russian gas. We also have dozens of other economic chickens coming home to roost...

> no supply guarantee since we left the EU (we are now "at the end of the pipe")

If anything, the UK is at the head of the pipe with regards to European LNG imports: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/britain-n...

I just hope that both sides are sensible: Europe is relying on UK LNG terminals to import gas; the UK is relying on European storage facilities.

I'm curious, do we actually have higher taxes than most other countries and if so in which specific areas?

Personally a well paid individual no dependants I find the Tory focus on cutting taxes ridiculous but I'm aware I'm ignorant of how we compare to other countries.

Comparing tax rates is notoriously detail driven but...

I earn a (healthy) 95k. I pay 35% in NI and Income tax. I'd pay another 9% in student loans if I wasn't lucky. So 44% total deductions

https://listentotaxman.com/?year=2022&taxregion=uk&age=0&tim...

In France I'd pay the exact same rate overall (95kGBP->112kEUR)

https://salaryaftertax.com/fr/salary-calculator

I think this sums up the UK: European style taxes, US Style public services.

Cynicism aside for a minute, I think we have a real issue in the UK with a diminishing tax base: fewer and fewer people contribute and they have to contribute more and more of their incomes and everyone gets less and less services.

Hmm I'm not sure it's fair to consider student loan repayment a tax. It's limited and many people will pay it off fast. I presume you're based in London if you're on £95k and still have outstanding student loads?

Moving to a European country with less industry and a moderate climate closer to the Med would blunt energy costs for someone (lower energy demand = less energy spend).

Yes, we're seeing inflation rates across the board above 10%, which is where the UK sits today. Estonia is the highest at 23%.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/225698/monthly-inflation...

CF Industries shut down their two nitrogen fertilizer plants in the U.K. back in September 2021 due to high natural gas prices.

Honest question: Where would you go?

Most places. I wouldn't work in the Middle East for moral reasons.

I'd go to the US or Canada happily. I'd go to the EU. Singapore has a company office and Australia is great from what I saw on holiday.

I have a chat scheduled with my boss in Sept, I might start sounding out a transfer.

I've recently started the move over to the Netherlands. The things that were keeping me in the UK (the last vestiges of our socialist governmental policies) have been torn to shreds by the current Tory government. I've also lost any hope that the British public will try to fight for it back. It feels like people are accepting a slip back into feudalism with open arms.

Peter Zeihan thinks that the US is in the best position to weather the coming years :-)

The US is at great risk of becoming an authoritarian, single-party dystopia in the coming years.

(Yes, I mean the Republicans.)

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