Posted on 08/05/2007 9:58:13 AM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat
BRITAIN is facing a mass exodus of people looking to escape the crime and grime of modern living.
The country’s biggest foreign visa consultancy firm has revealed that applications have soared in the last seven months by 80 per cent to almost 4,000 a week. Ten years ago the figure was just 300 a week.
Most people are relocating within the Commonwealth – in Australia, Canada and South Africa. They are almost all young professionals and skilled workers aged 20-40.
And many cite their reason for wanting to quit as immigration to these shores – and the burden it is placing on their communities and local authorities. The dearth of good schools, spiralling house prices, rising crime and tax increases are also driving people away.
Obtaining a visa to live abroad can cost as little as £1,500 for the right candidates. Plumbers, electricians, construction workers and doctors are famously in demand. The only obstruction to emigration from the UK is a criminal record, poor health, advancing age and being a “third country national”.
Liam Clifford, a former immigration control officer, set up globalvisas.com as a one-man band 12 years ago. He now employs 60 people and is in the process of opening new offices in both South Africa and Australia. Mr Clifford said: “It’s absolutely phenomenal. People are trying to get away to wherever they can, and most are successful.
“Ironically, one of the main reasons for leaving is the overstretch of services due to increasing immigration into the UK. People are looking for the better standard of living offered by other countries, as even the most idyllic villages in Britain are under pressure from rising populations Skilled labour is obviously an advantage, but so is speaking the English language. Most countries are harder to get into if you don’t speak English. UK plc simply isn’t fighting hard enough to keep its people. Some are telling us they are fed up with living in this country. Even business people are saying they’ve had enough.
“They’re saying ‘I can’t put my children into the right school, but if I move abroad I can’. Most people are very patriotic and don’t want to leave. They’re almost terrified about it. But they say they just have to.
“It’s a shame people at the top don’t recognise they’re not doing enough to retain highly skilled workers in this country. A lot of them are quite young, and they’re not idle. They just can’t see a future for themselves in this country. They want to get married and settle down and buy homes, but they can’t see it happening here.
“And time and time again they are saying to us they don’t want to be seen as racist because they are quitting because of immigration. We tell them of course they’re not.”
According to the most recent Office of National Statistics figures, in 2005 the official number of people leaving UK shores was 352,000 – up from 249,000 in 1995. The majority – around 150,000 – migrated from London and the south east.
Among those who headed out were Simon Blood, 26, and Rachel Roberts, 23, who moved to Australia four months ago. The couple, from Stoke-on-Trent, are loving their new life in far north Queensland so much that they’ve decided it’s permanent.
Apart from family, football and a few television programmes, there’s nothing they miss about home. Embracing the warmest winter they’ve ever known – averaging 24C daily – both relish the commute to work which takes just five minutes, leaving plenty of time for walks on the beach.
Simon, a marketing executive, and Rachel, a nurse, followed their dream after seeing a newspaper advertisement for nursing recruits Down Under.
“It all went very smoothly,” said Simon. “It’s beautiful here and we’ve no plans to go back for good.”
But for me there is no way I would leave, I would stay and fight anyway I was able to.
Good point and I agree.
Excellent comment.
My brother lived in Las Vegas for many years and saw this happening just like you said.
Of course we have the backbone for it, we just haven't arrived at a point where it's needed.
It will cost a city or two, and then our backbone will show. Think Toby Keith and his 'boot in the ass' line.
Buck up. We'll pull through this a stronger nation.
‘Apparently, “modern living” is now the euphemism de jour for savage, murdering, ignorant two-legged animals cutting swaths of mayhem and murder through all Western societies.’
Yep the first inventive rascal who markets a reasonably affordable, failsafe, lasar home security system that wraps around your house or apartment and zaps any and all invaders...is gonna become a gazillionaire...
talk about an idea WHOSE TIME HAS COME....
The Immigration Reform Act of 1965 changed preferences from the well-educated and higher-civilized from countries whose populations happened to be advanced and pale of skin for just the opposite. I believe Evil Ted and his cohorts (under the protective umbrella of Johnson’s “Great Society”) took advantage of the chance to alter the constituency.
How’s the upper half of the LP? say a line a little north of Muskegon across to Houghton Lake to south of Alpena? I’m fed up with S. Florida and starting to look at Michigan and Wisconsin. The part of Wisconsin I like runs SSW from Green Bay to Oshkosh. I grew up in northern Ohio/southern Michigan so I’m not afraid of the weather, really miss it to be honest, 50/60 daytime and 20/30 at night is about heaven in my book!
See mine at #88, any thoughts? I’d be happy to buy a house in MI if it was in a small town like my old home town of Hudson, in Lenawee county, near the Irish Hills, Devil’s Lake, etc.
>>>If we put the Democrat-Socialist party in charge in ‘08 then the same will be said of US in a few years.
Do you count Bush’s support for amnesty as the work of a Democrat-Socialist party?
It's more about the high cost of housing and the too high taxes citizens are paying for bad government.
If you want to take the position it's because of the high cost of muslim immigrants, fine. But, that's just one of many reasons.
I sure wouldn’t go to South Africa..Straight into the fire from the frying pan...
The fact is, the eastern Europeans are going to places like the UK and France, which are VERY CHEAP to fly to when compared to the U.S. Southern Europeans aren't reproducing, although it seems to me that every wealthy Italian keeps a place in Manhattan or Miami these days (the poor Italians being kept fat by Italy's generous welfare state).
Even if we abolished all visa/residency requirements for Europeans, we wouldn't have a much larger influx than we would now. If we gave preference to the skilled and educated, we would probably see more immigration from Asia, with a very slight uptick from Europe.
We have to start up the Crusades again. Unfortunately
I dont’ think this nation has the backbone for it.”
You would not know who was going to shoot you in the back.
Those white ethnics were mostly Democrats going along with Ted’s first push after his brother’s assassination. It was a sympathy play that we’ve been paying for for 42 years now. When do you believe we should get back to accepting the brightest and most talented over those that 3rd World nations consider detrimental to their societies?
Third worldies will be struggling to get in by the millions, via on foot illegally over the southern border as usual, or lined up at Embassies overseas, either way, and on the flip side, even average Americans, not particularly globe-trotting, internationally savvy types, will be trying to find a way out--and from the crippling, social welfare/free medical/free education tax obligations that are going to become an absolute nightmare in America, IMHO.
You got it. You see it (coming).
Conditions in the UK are so bad even the Muslims want to emigrate...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.