In Friday’s Daily Mail we revealed Labour’s war on strivers isn’t just driving away the rich – middle class professionals are fleeing too. Read their stories and start packing…
I save £15,000 a year and live near a beach
Five months ago, Nadia Leguel, 52, rented out of her two-bed London flat and moved to Nerja in Spain. She runs her own business, WagIt, a website for booking dog-friendly restaurants, bars and pubs. She says:
Starmer and Reeves were wonderful at making promises but, from the Budget this week, it’s clear it was all talk. Where were the positive changes – the encouragement for small businesses like mine?
Thankfully for me, I watched it from my apartment in southern Spain, congratulating myself on making the wisest move of my life.
Living in England had become financially unmanageable for me. For 14 years, I’ve owned a two-bed flat near Battersea, south-west London, with monthly payments of £1,700 for the mortgage and £120 on utility bills – plus annual management charges of £3,000 and £840 on council tax.
Made redundant from my job in sales just before lockdown, I picked myself up and set up my own business. However, in this tumultuous period, my earnings dipped. I didn’t qualify for government help because I own a property. I’d have been better off on Benefits Street!
There was not one iota of help for me as a fledgling new business, either. The cost of living was crazy, too: I live alone, so socialising is important to my wellbeing, but even the simplest of nights out became unaffordable. A basic dinner out was never less than £60, while a glass of wine in my local was £14.
Nadia Leguel, 52, rented out of her two-bed London flat and moved to Nerja in Spain
So this year, I advertised my flat for rent and got a tenant immediately. They pay £2,500 a month. Here I rent a similar two-bed apartment near the beach for £840 a month.
On almost every other level I’m saving, too. There’s no council tax or TV licence, just a nominal fee for rubbish collection, £16 a year.
My utility bills are around £40 a month, a saving of around £80 a month. A cut and blow dry is £25 versus £70 in London, and paella with a glass of wine in a restaurant is around £20. My monthly shop in the UK could cost as much as £250, including household cleaning products, toiletries and pet food – and now is just over £100.
Under this Labour government, it’s the people in the middle who suffer most – not poor, not rich, but those working hard and not getting anywhere because life is so expensive.
Taking everything into account, my savings tot up to around £1,200 a month – that’s £14,400 a year. Finally I can breathe again.
4-bed house… for just £16K
Chanelle Hill-Dobson, 31, a foreign languages teacher, has bought a four-bed townhouse near Turin in northern Italy, with her mother, Laurelle, 61, a professional house and pet sitter. She emigrates in January. Chanelle says:
Can you imagine being able to buy a comfortable four-bedroom home for under £16,000 in England? I could have saved every penny for the next decade and still not have got on the property ladder. And I blame that firmly on ever-rising taxes – not to mention our high mortgage rates and the grinding expense of everyday life in the UK.
Chanelle Hill-Dobson, 31, a foreign languages teacher, has bought a four-bed townhouse near Turin in northern Italy
Shouldn’t Reeves and Starmer focus on making the lives of ordinary people like me more affordable? It’s no life in the UK. For the past four years, Mum and I have been renting a tiny two-bed house for £1,000 a month to keep costs down and allow us to save a little – hardly ideal for two grown women.
Our new life in Italy will free us from this financial struggle. Although in Italy income tax is slightly higher at 23 per cent for lower earners, everything else will be much less.
I was manager of a warehouse for a charity previously, earning £18,600 but can expect to earn up to £24,000 teaching English. Our utility bills will more than halve from £135 to £65. We’ll kiss goodbye to the TV licence of £174 and our £2,000-a-year council tax. I estimate that our monthly savings will amount to around £15,000 a year.
I have an Irish passport so can stay without restrictions. My mum, who has a British passport, will return to the UK every 90 days and will look into applying for residency.
We just can’t wait to leave – even more so after this week.
Better off… in Switzerland
Media PR consultant Emily Falkner-Duffin, 32, lived near Oxford until four months ago when she moved to Switzerland to join husband Tom, 31, a development chef for a restaurant chain. She says:
Switzerland has been my home since July, where Tom and I live in a lovely new apartment with mountain views. Meanwhile, our three-bed semi in Oxfordshire is rented out for £1,400 a month, which more than covers the £1,200 monthly mortgage.
Tom moved here in 2022. Our long distance relationship worked and, at the time, we didn’t know how long his contract would last. But in the past 18 months, everything changed. My concerns about rising taxes and living costs, violent crime, safety and even just getting a medical appointment in days rather than weeks or months increased – not just for myself but for my parents and grandparents.
Media PR consultant Emily Falkner-Duffin, 32, lived near Oxford until four months ago when she moved to Switzerland
Even though I shopped at Lidl and Aldi, spending around £60 a week, I worried how I’d find money for the imminent doubling of water bills and the new tax for bin collections in our area, bringing my council tax from £170 to £210 a month.
So I quit my job, went freelance and moved to Switzerland. Now, looking at Reeves’ Budget, I’m so glad I did.
The income tax rate here of 10 per cent is our biggest saving. We even received a letter recently to say our rent will go down by 100 Swiss Francs (around £95) from February, bringing it in line with current average rates. This just wouldn’t happen in the UK.
Travel by trains and buses is remarkably affordable. Services run on time and the infrastructure is reliable, unlike in the UK.
I’m surprised how much my wellbeing has improved – free from worries about crime, what taxes or bills are coming, and whether food prices will continue to go up. Everything is a battle in the UK.
Gloom of UK seems a world away
Business strategist Katie Godfrey, 36, her partner, Luke, 38, who works in real estate, and their children Lola-Rose, ten, and Brodee, three, left their Bedfordshire home to move to Dubai in July. Her business turnover is around £600,000. She says:
Fed up with rising costs, threats from Labour of more raids on taxes, homes and savings, as well as the general mood of misery in the UK, in July we swapped life in a three-bedroom house in a Bedfordshire village for a five-bed villa in Dubai.
At the heart of the decision were our children and a desire for a safer and more rewarding lifestyle for our hard work.
Business strategist Katie Godfrey, 36, her partner, Luke, 38, who works in real estate, moved with their children from Bedfordshire to Dubai
I have businesses in the UAE and UK (kgbusinessmentor.com) and clients across the globe, meaning I can work from anywhere. Having been a regular visitor to Dubai for 12 years, I love the ‘anything is possible’ mindset here, in contrast to the negativity that prevails in the UK.
In Bedfordshire, we paid £1,500 a month rent and I owned an apartment which I sold just before our move. Council tax and utility bills totalled £2,000 a month and a basic meal for four at a local pub cost £100. In Dubai, there’s no income tax, VAT is only five per cent, fuel costs me £20 a week instead of the £500 a month I was paying in the UK, while the weekly shop is around the same at £160.
I haven’t moved here specifically because of taxes – I still have businesses registered in the UK and am a taxpayer there. The biggest bonus for us is the lifestyle and the sense of being rewarded and encouraged for our hard work. What’s the point striving for a better life when Rachel Reeves keeps raiding our earnings and savings?
The focus in the UAE is on encouraging businesses to be progressive and to make and invest money, rather than having a government dragging you down. There is a range of visas for those who want to work over here and fulfil certain conditions.
At weekends we can dip in and out of the glitz of Dubai – dining in opulent hotels or eating for less than £50 for four in a local restaurant near our villa, relaxing in beach clubs, or playing in a community pool for free.
Saying goodbye to my parents and brother was a wrench and the first few months in the UAE were rocky as we forged new routines and friendships. But we are infinitely happier and financially better off.
When I’m having a night-time swim with the children after a busy day, the gloom of England and Reeves’ threat of more taxes are a world away.
I booked one-way tickets…
Phil Harrison, a business strategist, his fiancee Kate, 37, a PA, and their daughter Alarna, ten, are moving from Newcastle to the UAE next month. Phil, 45, says:
Phil Harrison, a business strategist, moved to Dubai with his fiancee Kate and their daughter Alarna
Immediately after Rachel Reeves’ Budget speech, I booked us three one-way tickets to Dubai.
Yes, the rising tax burden deeply concerns me. But it’s not just about money – it’s about aspiration. As a businessman and father, I want to live in a country that’s governed by forward thinkers, who are encouraging businesses and individuals to grow.
That’s certainly not here, with Reeves and Starmer running the show. So three days after Christmas, we’ll leave our beautiful four-bed home in the North East and move to the Emirates for a new life.
Businesses in the UK are taxed from every possible angle, making the reinvestment needed for growth and innovation in order to create jobs, as well as better products and services, impossible.
I have clients who won’t grow their businesses beyond the £90,000 turnover threshold at which they’d have to pay VAT because they can’t afford to. Some are too terrified of increases in self-assessment tax to pay themselves a decent salary.
One client of mine turns over £40,000 a month. In Dubai, with lower taxes and no income tax, he would have £17,000 more every month to spend on his business and family.
Some people see Dubai as a place of luxury and excess – but that’s not the appeal to me. For a decade I’ve worked 65 hours a week. It’s time to be in a country where I’ll be rewarded, not penalised, for my hard work.
Out there, we’re going to rent a villa in a quiet suburb for around £2,600 a month – the price of our monthly mortgage in the UK – while we wait for our Newcastle home to sell, then decide where we’d like to buy.
I will have to pay for a business licence that will be the equivalent of several thousand pounds but that will cover all our residency visas too. There will be still be some huge savings for us in Dubai, the biggest of which is our combined household income tax of around £35,000 in the UK, which doesn’t exist in the UAE. That saving alone will pay for our daughter’s schooling of £13,000 a year and private health insurance with plenty of money left over.
We pay £200 a month for private health insurance in the UK and it’s terrible. In Dubai it’s £150 more but is world class – you can see a consultant or have a scan the same day.
Kate and I spend £750 a month on fuel for our cars here, which will plummet to £50 a month in Dubai.
Utility bills in the UK can be as much as £600 a month during the winter when the heating’s on. They’re around £200 a month in Dubai, even with the AC on all the time. The weekly food shop will be around 25 per cent cheaper per week. We’ll be saving a minimum £51,800 a year.
But by far the greatest saving is if you run a business and you move to Dubai, you don’t pay corporation tax or VAT if you’re just selling outside the UAE, and personal tax is nil. Corporation tax and VAT for a successful business in the UK can easily amount to between £50,000 and £60,000 per year. I will do the same job I’m doing here, just remotely from Dubai.
Kate’s incredibly close to her parents, both in their late 70s, and will miss them terribly. But even they said: ‘We don’t blame you for leaving. This country is a complete mess.’
