British Immigration Hypocrisy: Exporting Graduates to Dubai While Complaining About Care Workers.
The Great British Brain Drain: Young Professionals Fleeing to Muslim Countries While Their Parents Complain About Muslim Immigration.
The same generation that voted for Brexit and complains endlessly about immigration is now watching their university-educated children fuck off to Dubai in record numbers.
Meanwhile, Britain imports exactly what those parents claim to fear: foreign workers. Except they’re not highly-skilled professionals - they’re care workers and seasonal agricultural labourers doing jobs British graduates won’t touch because the pay’s shit and there’s no tax-free lifestyle to Instagram about.
The actual trade: Export degree-holders fleeing £53,000+ student debt to tax-free Muslim countries. Import people willing to work in British care homes for £12/hour.
It’s not immigration they hate. It’s equality. And their own children have voted with their feet.
The Numbers: Britain’s Generational Exodus.
Over 240,000 British nationals live in Dubai alone. Enquiries about moving to the UAE surged by 420% over five years. 174,000 British emigrants are aged 16-34 - Gen Z and younger Millennials with degrees and £53,000+ student debt.
They’re moving to a country where Islam is the official religion (75% of population), Arabic is the official language, and 88.5% of residents are foreigners.
All those things their parents claim to fear happening in Britain.
What Britain Actually Imports.
While graduates flee, Britain imports workers whose parents complain about. Health and Care Worker visas collapsed 77% after March 2024’s ban on bringing dependants. 25% of skilled worker visas went to RQF level 1-2 jobs - mainly care workers, not doctors.
Seasonal Worker visas: 38,462, with 78% from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. People picking vegetables, British graduates won’t touch.
Export degree-holders to Dubai. Import care workers from Central Asia. Brain drain in reverse.
Why Young Brits Are Fleeing: Student Debt and Generational Betrayal.
Tax-free income, consumer prices 20.6% lower than London, higher salaries. But critically: no student loan repayments. In Dubai, with no UK taxable income, £53,000+ debt disappears.
The parents’ generation got free university, bought houses for 3-4x annual salary, then voted for tuition fees and Brexit. Their children’s response: Fuck off to a Muslim country where at least the economic exploitation is honest.
Related: When Britain Stopped Being Great - How forty-five years of extraction over production created this exodus.
The Generational Hypocrisy.
The generation that voted for Brexit, imposed tuition fees, and complains about immigration now watches their children become economic migrants in a Muslim country. Those “British values” apparently don’t include democracy (UAE is an absolute monarchy), freedom of speech (criticism = prison), affordable housing (they bought cheap, made it expensive), or free education (they got it free, charged their children £9,000/year).
Parents share posts about Sharia law whilst their children live under actual Islamic law in Dubai, perfectly happy as long as the salary is tax-free.
The Children of Brexit Voters Fleeing Brexit Britain.
Of 693,000 people who left the UK in year ending May, 252,000 were British nationals. Nine out of ten are working age.
They carry £53,000+ debt their parents never had. Face house prices 10x annual salary (vs parents’ 3-4x). Navigate a Brexit-damaged job market. Watch their parents complain about immigration whilst becoming immigrants themselves.
The generation that voted to “take back control” created conditions so punishing that their children fled to authoritarian Muslim countries. Then complain about not seeing grandchildren enough.
What Dubai Offers That Britain Doesn’t
In the UAE, 88% are expatriates - Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Filipinos who clean houses, drive cars, build buildings. The same nationalities their parents complain about in Britain are safely positioned lower down the economic hierarchy.
Young Brits figured it out: Their parents got cheap property, free university, defined benefit pensions, and a servant class disguised as “the service sector.” Then pulled up every ladder.
Dubai offers what Britain used to: economic privilege, cheap domestic labour, and living substantially better than the same salary back home. It’s not about escaping multiculturalism. It’s about escaping multiculturalism where everyone’s equally skint.
The Truth Nobody Wants to Say.
This isn’t about immigration. It never was.
One generation got free university, £30,000 houses, and defined benefit pensions. They voted for tuition fees, Brexit, and immigration restrictions. Now they watch their children - carrying £53,000+ debt, facing £300,000+ starter homes, with worthless pensions - flee to Muslim countries for economic survival.
Meanwhile, Britain imports care workers and agricultural labourers from Central Asia to do jobs for £12/hour that British graduates won’t touch.
Further reading: The Disparate and the Desperate - How political movements unite incompatible viewpoints through shared grievances until governing reality forces contradictions into daylight.
The 240,000 British expats in Dubai chose tax-free income over student loan repayments, economic opportunity over cultural familiarity, living as immigrants in a Muslim country over poverty in their own, honest exploitation over gaslighting about “meritocracy.”
It’s not immigration that their parents oppose. It’s economic equality.
The parents exported their children’s futures by voting to make Britain unaffordable. Their children exported themselves in response.
That’s what happens when one generation pulls the ladder up and acts surprised when their kids find a different building.
The Almighty Gob is a satirical political commentator focused on Bristol City Council accountability and UK political dysfunction. Just a simple gob with a viewpoint - and a dispassionate one at that. Support independent commentary by subscribing to my Substack.
John Mason International Movers. (2024). Brits moving to the UAE soars by 420% in five years
The National. (2025). Gen Z leads departure of British workers to Dubai
Wikipedia. Expatriates in the United Arab Emirates
Wikipedia. Demographics of the United Arab Emirates
Relocate to Dubai. (2025). 20 Essential Statistics for Brits Considering a Move to Dubai
Office for National Statistics (ONS). UK emigration data, year ending May 2025
The World Data. (2025). Immigration in UK 2025: Statistics & Facts
UK Government. (2024). Migration Advisory Committee Annual Report 2024
UK Government. (2025). Immigration System Statistics: Why do people come to the UK - Work?