What would it take for you to leave the country?

[Bored Of Education]

Not particularly inspired by Theresa May's actions today but they are apposite. As most of us live in countries that a revolution is hardly likely to happen, emigrating is probably our ultimate reaction to actions that we didn't approve of. I appreciate that some of us live in countries that already have things in place that may make others of us leave their own country. For instance, I would leave if they re-introduced the death penalty and the right to carry guns here.

Another often-mentioned affront to human rights is no freedom of the press but I think that is is more difficult as, unless there was some hostile takeover where the media was shut down and/or controlled by the government overnight, these freedoms would be taken away by increments. Indeed, I am sure that there are some outside Britain and, perhaps, inside that think that the BBC is state controlled media. Anyway, I think that it is hard to think, firstly, how any increments too much wouldn't be challenged individually (even at the level that May is suggesting) and, secondly, which increment would make me stop and say that's it, I am off to Canada, is hard to say.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

I think if you went, I'd probably say "well there's nothing here for me anymore". I mean that would be it, wouldn't it. Sell the house, cash in the mortgage, move to Cape Verde, open up a sports bar. What would be the point of staying?

[ursus arctos]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

We've actually been thinking about this quite a bit given that ursus minor will soon be off to uni, which will pretty much break the last reason that we HAVE to spend most of our time here.

Having lived under multiple Berlusconi governments, it's never been a single factor or development for me, but rather a sense that important aspects of life have gotten very bad and appear almost certain to worsen. As Renart and I were musing on the Gun thread, there is evidence that we may well be reaching that point when it comes to gun violence.

Most of you are extremely lucky in being able to benefit from free movement within the EU. Actually establishing residence elsewhere would be significantly more difficult for the three of us (though less so for the rest of the family, should they get the Slovene passports they are entitled to).

[San Bernardhinault]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

It's an interesting question - I'm not at all tied to the country, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we move again at some point. But I really don't know what the external factors would be that would drive it.

I really like it here. And (despite today's events), I don't feel the gun violence thing has much impact on me (I suspect I'd feel different if I had a kid in school or university that went into lockdown every now and again).

Being in California, we're insulated against the worst madnesses of the US right wing. But I don't know what the topping point would be if they were in power. I doubt it would be a single thing, but in a hypothetical world with a Ted Cruz presidency and a Republican House and Senate appointing crazy supreme court justices there would be a point where living here would become untenable.

[tee rex]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

Internet nonsense number 487:

"If X happens, I'm leaving country A and moving to country B" - ignoring the fact that said B is worse. (See: US Republicans moving to NZ if Hillary wins, etc.).

[via vicaria]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

My parents left their home country; most of my family have in turn left this one. I suppose in some ways the question I've posed myself is what's keeping me in this country, as opposed to what would make me leave. If I hadn't met my boyfriend, I know I'd have left.

Obviously there are limitations to which countries I would move to, and the countries on the 'no' list would probably suggest what external factors would actively drive me away from this one (I can't see homosexuality being made illegal here again, so that's one thing I won't be driven off by).

Bored, given this country's foreign policies and adventures, why would - say - legalising gun ownership drive you away, but not what's already being done? I'd say that's equally as egregious.

[Wouter D]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

I have already left my country. My career compels me to do so. If Geert Wilders gets into an actual government, I might consider giving up my Dutch passport. Then the liberal, progressive streak that makes me proud of being Dutch is definitively dead.

Canada sounds like a nice place, yeah. But I'm looking for a permanent research position in academia, and I'm afraid that I can't be a chooser in that job market.

[evilC]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

What would it take for you to leave the country?

An offer of about £10,000, a job and a place to stay.

You don't have about £10,000, a job for me and a place to stay, do you? only I could really do with them right now!*

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(* - not a joke! I repeat: NOT A JOKE!!!)

[Bored Of Education]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

via vicaria wrote: Bored, given this country's foreign policies and adventures, why would - say - legalising gun ownership drive you away, but not what's already being done? I'd say that's equally as egregious.

Recently, we had a rare and tragic death of a child in a school knifing. If there were more guns hanging around, it could have been a school shooting. As it goes, I think that there are too many privately owned guns here as it is, especially in people's homes.

As we have seen, the right to bear arms is very hard to get rid of whereas any foreign policy transgressions are still seen as against the law and challenged (even if many of the population may not see the problem).

[Bored Of Education]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

tee rex wrote: Internet nonsense number 487:

"If X happens, I'm leaving country A and moving to country B" - ignoring the fact that said B is worse. (See: US Republicans moving to NZ if Hillary wins, etc.).

Except it's nothing like that, is it~

[evilC]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

Places you have seriously looked at moving to over the past few years:

Campbeltown

Puerto Varas

Leamington

Cerbere

[Toby Gymshorts]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

If I had the means, I'd leave tomorrow. I hate the direction this country is being taken in, and it's only going to get worse.

[WOM]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

I can't imagine how being anywhere else would make me happier.

[Bored Of Education]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

Yes but you live in Canada where everyone wants to move to

[ursus arctos]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

I was going to ask what the UK posters preferred bolt hole was.

Canada has some immigration hurdles, but doesn't pose the language challenge present in most of the rest of the EU.

We would most likely go to one of France, Germany, Italy or Slovenia, though each of those obviously is imperfect (otherwise we may have left already).

[ad hoc]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

I presume I'm exempt from this question, since I've already done it (and I did it originally at least in part to get away from a country led by Thatcher)

Bored of Education wrote: As most of us live in countries that a revolution is hardly likely to happen

The country I live in had one of those yesterday. (Not that I am there to have witnessed it)

[hobbes]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

The weather, neo con politics and opportunities for the cub would be the main drivers for me. However, I have no facility for languages which rules out all the places I'd like to live in Europe, I couldn't live in a country with the death penalty, gun lunacy and terrible employment laws which rules out the US, I'd be moving to escape the cold, so Canada is waaaaay out, New Zealand is too isolated and Australia is full of things that can kill you and is even more batshit than the UK politically.
I suppose ideally if I could learn Spanish, Palma di Mallorca would be the place for me, even if it is a little small.

[tee rex]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

Bored of Education wrote:
Except it's nothing like that, is it~

My point wasn't aimed at you, or anyone. Just noting a common fallacy.

More explicitly: it's the difference between things that can easily change (gov'ts voted in or out) and those that can't (I would guess that includes USA gun culture, though I defer to our American correspondents there).

Also worth considering: both sides of the magnet. Sometimes the impetus to leave means that a would-be emigrant is focusing less on the future than the present (i.e. reasons to leave). But if that future is going to be elsewhere, then it's the pros and cons of the new environment that will matter, and all too soon. It's hard to think that way, to imagine life in 5 years' time, when the prime motive is leaving, not arriving. Like any life decision that's half-made already, it can be hard to brake and reverse.

I've lost count of the number of immigrants to New Zealand (often from the UK, but could be any big city) who are unhappy because they assumed all their urban pleasures and conveniences would be available to the same degree here, only on a less crowded island. Common mistake: "it'll be like moving to the countryside". No, not when the countryside is only an hour or two from London or whichever metropolis provides the critical mass of population, and all its advantages.

[Bored Of Education]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

ad hoc wrote: I presume I'm exempt from this question, since I've already done it (and I did it originally at least in part to get away from a country led by Thatcher)

As most of us live in countries that a revolution is hardly likely to happen

The country I live in had one of those yesterday. (Not that I am there to have witnessed it)

Ah, I knew there was another thread I meant to start today.

[treibeis]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

Toby Gymshorts wrote: If I had the means, I'd leave tomorrow. I hate the direction this country is being taken in, and it's only going to get worse.

Right, I'm the smug cunt who's left the country he grew up in, and I'm also pissed, so anything I say is irrelevant anyway. But I'll go on:

You haven't got any kids, right? You're forty, or as good as? You like your missus, or enough to refer to her as Mrs Toby Gymshorts. And you've got a job, in insurance, in London.

Yet you don't have the means to leave the country?

With all due respect (and there's a lot of respect; you once said something nice about one of my posts): That's bollocks, that is.

[WOM]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

The Association of Crazy Golf Proprietors' annual ball run a bit late this year?

[Amor de Cosmos]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

I'd be moving to escape the cold, so Canada is waaaaay out,

Not all of it. Not by a long shot. But so long as most of the world continues to believe that, local housing prices will increase at a merely ludicrous rate, rather than totally batshit crazy.

But seriously. I think more newcomers from the UK are put off by scale and distance than the weather. Canada has only three cities that most Europeans would seriously consider as such. The populated bits of the country — ie: not much of it — is likely to seem very parochial if you're used to urban centres elsewhere. At least at first.

[Toby Gymshorts]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

treibeis wrote:

If I had the means, I'd leave tomorrow. I hate the direction this country is being taken in, and it's only going to get worse.

Right, I'm the smug cunt who's left the country he grew up in, and I'm also pissed, so anything I say is irrelevant anyway. But I'll go on:

You haven't got any kids, right? You're forty, or as good as? You like your missus, or enough to refer to her as Mrs Toby Gymshorts. And you've got a job, in insurance, in London.

Yet you don't have the means to leave the country?

With all due respect (and there's a lot of respect; you once said something nice about one of my posts): That's bollocks, that is.

You're right about all of those things, other than having the means. We have no savings to speak of, other than a small amount of cash which my parents gave us which we're really trying to add to. We're stuck on the rental treadmill with no real means of getting back off again at present; all our money goes on keeping our heads above water, much in the same way as millions of others, I imagine.

Add to that the fact I have no flair for languages, and that insurance isn't really a "skill" that is in demand, and I'm a bit stumped. I guess all of this combines to put me in the state of mind I'm in 95% of the time.

Not to say you don't have a point.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

What would it take? Well, nothing that I see as even remotely likely in the next 10 years or so would do it. I love living in Britain, even after all the society and infrastructure-destroying misdeeds of the Tories. I love the cultural offering, I love the material offering (shops have all the cooking ingredients you could wish for for almost every world cuisine etc.) I love the standards of behaviour, good manners, sense of humour, the laughter in the face of pomposity, and all the rest. Other places have features I pine for, sure, like the alternative buzz and wonderful greenery (literal and metaphorical) of Berlin, the climate of the Mediterranean countries and so on, but after a year or so even in my favourite city of Berlin, I'd be pining for home.

I mean, sure, if by some bizarre freak cultural development we suddenly developed a gun culture like the US has, with all the death, danger and frustrating stupidity that that involves, I'd be on the next plane to Berlin or Barcelona, but it's hardly likely, is it?

Edit: and that's disregarding little points, such as, say, the fact that most of my friends are in this country. (I'm ignoring, as an artificial hypothesis, the family thing: my two eldest girls are well on the way to independence, but my wife would have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the country and my youngest daughter loves her school.)

[treibeis]

What would it take for you to leave the country?

Toby Gymshorts wrote: You're right about all of those things, other than having the means. We have no savings to speak of, other than a small amount of cash which my parents gave us which we're really trying to add to. We're stuck on the rental treadmill with no real means of getting back off again at present; all our money goes on keeping our heads above water, much in the same way as millions of others, I imagine.

Add to that the fact I have no flair for languages, and that insurance isn't really a "skill" that is in demand, and I'm a bit stumped. I guess all of this combines to put me in the state of mind I'm in 95% of the time.

Not to say you don't have a point.

Sorry if I came across like an pissed-up barstool keyboard warrior earlier on. Erdinger Dunkel can do terrible things to a man('s lavatory-paper bill).

Now I'm no longer pissed, I'll go on anyway:

I don't know how much "a small amount of cash" is. (I came here with 300 quid in my back pocket (Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I know: I was 22 years old; this was over 25 years ago ("Aye, lad when 300 quid were REALLY 300 quid"); I wasn't part of a couple; I knew nothing and thought nothing through properly.).

However, depending where you go, I don't reckon it would cost that much just to try things out for a while. More than 300 quid in new money, of course, but not 30,000 quid.

I sound like one of those greedy West German scavengers who bought up half the GDR in the early 1990s for ten marks and a bag of fresh vegetables, but you could rent a gaff in parts of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or Brandeburg for literally next to nothing. Whether you'd want to live there or not is another thing; I'm just saying that moving abroad temporarily doesn't always have to cost the earth.

And even if you don't have a flair for languages, English is your mother tongue. I'm going to get the qualified English teachers' collective back up now*, but it's still possible to get a job teaching English even if you're not qualified.

(*I'm not saying it's right and I'm not belittling teaching qualifications and I'm not condoning these fuckers who ruin the prices for everybody else; I'm just saying that there are people who will pay native English speakers, whether they're a professor of Linguistics or an insurance crack, to talk to them in English.)