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My bet (being British) is that Brits have lots of culturally-close New World countries to pick from. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all culturally clos

My bet (being British) is that Brits have lots of culturally-close New World countries to pick from. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all culturally close and English-speaking. Someone from Germany or France have far fewer, if any options, especially if you count out bordering countries.

vidarh 4y ago
That, and the weather. But this is a recurring theme to the point where I think it's not so much that the opportunity is there (non-English speaking countries are also high on the list of places British people want to emigrate) but a cultural idea where there seems to be that mild level of discontent that in the UK is expressed by talking about (but rarely following through) on moving to Australia in particular as a kind of hyperbole. It's a bit of a favourite of mine to explore, as it's such an weird peculiarity of British culture. As a result, UK media as well as political groups all know that if they want a reliable way of writing a "the UK is going to hell" article, all they need to do is do a survey on people wanting to leave. Because if you can't get more than about half of the population to say they're at least pondering leaving the UK, you're doing something very wrong and/or people are unusually happy. Some examples: 2023: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11768729/Half-want-quit-broken-Britain-new-report-reveals.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11768729/Half-want-... 2022: https://hrnews.co.uk/two-thirds-of-british-workers-dream-of-living-abroad/ https://hrnews.co.uk/two-thirds-of-british-workers-dream-of-... 2022: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/people-leaving-uk-moving-abroad-23903523 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/people-... I think this one was what first made me aware of this phenomenon: 2012: https://www.aol.co.uk/2012/04/15/almost-half-of-brits-want-to-emigrate/ https://www.aol.co.uk/2012/04/15/almost-half-of-brits-want-t...

vidarh 4y ago

That, and the weather. But this is a recurring theme to the point where I think it's not so much that the opportunity is there (non-English speaking countries are also high on the list of places British people want to emigrate) but a cultural idea where there seems to be that mild level of discontent that in the UK is expressed by talking about (but rarely following through) on moving to Australia in particular as a kind of hyperbole. It's a bit of a favourite of mine to explore, as it's such an weird peculiarity of British culture. As a result, UK media as well as political groups all know that if they want a reliable way of writing a "the UK is going to hell" article, all they need to do is do a survey on people wanting to leave. Because if you can't get more than about half of the population to say they're at least pondering leaving the UK, you're doing something very wrong and/or people are unusually happy. Some examples: 2023: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11768729/Half-want-quit-broken-Britain-new-report-reveals.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11768729/Half-want-... 2022: https://hrnews.co.uk/two-thirds-of-british-workers-dream-of-living-abroad/ https://hrnews.co.uk/two-thirds-of-british-workers-dream-of-... 2022: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/people-leaving-uk-moving-abroad-23903523 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/people-... I think this one was what first made me aware of this phenomenon: 2012: https://www.aol.co.uk/2012/04/15/almost-half-of-brits-want-to-emigrate/ https://www.aol.co.uk/2012/04/15/almost-half-of-brits-want-t...