before I moved to Britain I thought it's a rich country, but actually it's a poor country with one rich city (London + Oxford/Cambridge)
GDP of London is $66,000. Second biggest city in UK is Birmingham, has GDP per capita $30,000. I have wasted 10 years in that god-forsaken place. Birmingham is not unique, Manchester, Glasgow, and other big cities are withing ~15% error margin.
Second biggest city in Germany is Hamburg, has GDP per capita $85,000. To find a city in Germany that is as poor as Birmingham, you have to go to the 4th poorest city, Oberhausen [1], population 200K, rank 59 by size and rank 104 by GDP.
UK even loses comparison to post-soviet countries - Prague, Czech republic, GDP PP is $57,000, Double of Birmingham. Bratislava, Slovatia - $45,000. Warsaw, Poland - $32,000
And that's average. Then there are some truly god-forsaken places like North & East Ayrshire, has GDP €16,200. I don't even know how that's possible, Yakutia, Siberia has GDP of $18,000
Brexit vote was about stopping immigrants from getting in, British people do not realise they should be the ones getting out. You could hand an average non-london Britton a ticket to a random European capital their standard of living would improve.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_cities_by_GDP#:...