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Hiya, I must say that the future for this country looks quite bleak IMO. I suppose it is long overdue, we have been on top for centuries. But if Peak Oil occurs, what do we have here? High population, too many urbanised areas, industrial scale farming methods and low North Sea fish stocks. I doubt sixty million people could fit in Cornwall or the Lake District and those who get a comfy patch there will not be popular people.

So, I'm planning on travelling the world soon and I might settle down somewhere else. The problem is finding a good place. I have some family who live in Greece, how would such a place survive in those circumstances? In another thread someone suggested Malta. Sounds nice.

Or will it be best to just get a boat and escape out to sea and hope for the best in the endless blue? Do you have any other suggestions? I don't really have much here for me other than my job and family as I'm just 20 and I have a few thousand pound saved.

My advice- stay in the UK, stockpile food, find a local water source and study wild foods.

Try and find some land. 1/4 acre of wheat, 25 X 25 foot veg plot and a small area to keep chickens could keep you going.

No where beats home. Even if modern britain is a ****hole

chris25 wrote:No where beats home. Even if modern britain is a ****hole

I'd agree. In times of hardship, the "outsiders" get a hard time. At least staying in the UK you'll be less likely to be considered an outsider.

I'd stay where you are for the time being and learn as much as you can about basic living skills in your own language - you'll learn quicker.

At 20 with knowledge of gathering and growing food, making and heating shelter and looking after yourself, you're in a very good position to be welcomed by a group who need young people.

Worthwhile revisiting these threads on this subject.
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... php?t=3871
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... php?t=5697

I agree with HWhippy, clv101 and chris: stay put!

I've been in central Spain for a decade, have integrated well etc (i.e. I don't hang around with the ex-pat community), but I am still treated as an outsider in many respects, especially when I meet someone for the first time. People STILL innocently ask me "How long have you been here? Do you like Spain? When are you going back?... etc., even after a decade .

It?s a tricky one but if you?ve only got a few thousand pounds, unfortunately I think the decision is made for you. Having said that, although I?m in England at the moment, I lived in Thailand for several years and will be returning for good this summer and although my experience is similar to Erik?s, I wouldn?t be so averse to moving abroad permanently if (and it?s a big if) you can make some meaningful local connection. Perhaps I?m being naive but I wouldn?t be so resolutely negative about the chances of making it in a new/'foreign' community when things get tight.

Toadstool wrote: Or will it be best to just get a boat and escape out to sea and hope for the best in the endless blue? Do you have any other suggestions? I don't really have much here for me other than my job and family as I'm just 20 and I have a few thousand pound saved.

This is a tough choice.
If there is a war over resources and the nukes start flying the UK is toast.
If it goes mad max the UK is toast.
If it doesn't go mad max my personal opinion is you can look forward to a 1984 style police state with grinding poverty but at least you'll be alive.
That's my personal opinion of the best case scenario given the collectivist and redistributionist predilections of even those who should know better along with the extremely limited resources and massive overpopulation on our little island.

As for going elsewhere: yes there are some places (notably france) that would fare better in aggregate, but as the other posters have pointed out, it's not easy being a foreigner and if there's not enough to go around in the foreign land and you're doing ok then the simple fact you are a foreigner will be enough pretext to come and take your stuff.

I have that problem right here because my wife is a foreigner and my kids look foreign so I am really in a bind.

To me the best choices if you want to cut and run look like oz, nz and canada simply because these places already have a lot of brits in them and you won't be too out of place.

fifthcolumn wrote: I have that problem right here because my wife is a foreigner and my kids look foreign so I am really in a bind.

That's what scares the hell out of me too. If we are in my missus home country, I'm the outsider! In this country, she is. No kids yet though, but, yeah, they would look 'different' as well.
Luckily, she's an outsider from one of the more popular outsider groups, rather than one of the groups that the Daily Mail/Express like to rant about!

As much as the future scares me, I think being here is going to be the better option (I would have loved to have done NZ, but trying to persuade my wife on that option would have taken things too far).

GavinT wrote:That's what scares the hell out of me too. If we are in my missus home country, I'm the outsider! In this country, she is.

Well my wife is also from one of the "popular" outsider groups but she's noticeably foreign as are my two boys. Just enough for them to look different.

To a certain extent I'm also a foreigner given that I'm Canadian by birth even though you couldn't tell by looking at me or by my accent.

I'm wrestling with this and I'm nearly at the tipping point that I would decide to go, but looking into it, it's seriously, seriously expensive not to mention complicated to pull up stakes and move to another country.

I also think it might already be too late for me to do it as I watch whats happening unfold around us right now.

If I was young, free and single I'd already have gone.

If it's like this now I wonder what it will be like when things get really bad:

Attack victim tells of Spanish nightmare
By Rachel Wareing

Vivienne with son Aaron, daughter Katrina and Katrina's baby son
An ex-pat who fled Spain after she was attacked by locals has warned of growing hostility towards British residents.

Vivienne Benson's family arrived back in Sussex homeless and penniless after their dream of a place in the sun turned sour.

The 47-year-old was assaulted as she enjoyed an afternoon drink with her partner in a bar near their home in La Alfoquia, near Almeria, two years ago.

A 40-strong mob attacked the couple then targeted their house, smashing windows, doors and personal possessions while Vivienne's teenage son, Aaron, hid upstairs.

Vivienne said: "They were screaming they were going to kill us and shouting, Brits out'.

"There was no reason for it. We had seen these people around the village for years.

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Nobody could understand why they suddenly turned on us. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

When police arrived they took pictures of the house on their mobile phones but did not take any forensic evidence, even though the blood of one of the assailants was splattered on the walls.

Surveillance camera footage of the attack at the bar also disappeared.

Vivienne received death threats after she decided to press charges and had to leave her sales job and escaped to a house in the mountains with Aaron, 15, and her 18-year-old daughter Katrina. Her partner, a builder, covered the bills but Vivienne was unable to find work and the family lived on the breadline.

They spent a year in hiding but eventually decided to move back to Hove after their bolthole was discovered.

The mother-of-two said tensions between Spaniards and the ex-pat community became increasingly apparent during the five years she lived there.

She decided to share her story with The Argus after reading about Goring couple John and Christine Bull, who fear their three-bedroom home near Almeria will be demolished.

The Spanish authorities plan to clear thousands of homes built illegally on the coast and on agricultural land - many of them owned by British ex-pats who, like the Bulls, bought them in good faith.

Vivienne believes resentment among Spaniards is fuelled partly by the overdevelopment of land for homes.

She said: "As the coastal areas have become built up builders have been moving inland and building 10,000 homes in villages where there is no infrastructure.

All the resources such as water are being taken by the British."

Too few ex-pats bother to learn the language or adapt to the culture, she added, with some residents unable to say even basic greetings.

Yet she admits even those who do make an effort to integrate can find it hard to make friends with their Spanish neighbours.

"It's not until you learn a bit of Spanish that you realise they're insulting you, or telling you you're being ripped off."

Her allies were fellow migrants who also found themselves isolated - Ecuadorian and Argentinian workers and neighbours from Barcelona, who see themselves as Catalans rather than Spaniards.

Vivienne has now been back in Hove for four months but the process of rebuilding her life is proving difficult.

She and her two children and baby grandson Harvey are living with her sister and nephew in a two-bedroom flat in Wilfrid Road, Hove.

Her relationship with her partner has finally crumbled under the stress of the past two years and they have now separated.

Aaron is happily settled at Portslade Community College but has been moved back a year as he had fallen behind with his studies while attending the local Spanish school.

Although she is working as a sales administrator, Vivienne does not earn enough to rent a house privately and has appealed to the city council for help.

Housing officers have warned they may only be able to offer her temporary accommodation in Eastbourne, but that would mean finding a new school and job.

She said: "It's been horrendous.

I want to pay my way but just need a helping hand to get started again."

chris25 wrote:My advice- stay in the UK, stockpile food, find a local water source and study wild foods.

Try and find some land. 1/4 acre of wheat, 25 X 25 foot veg plot and a small area to keep chickens could keep you going.

No where beats home. Even if modern britain is a ****hole

Excellent advice. I would also add get to know as many people around you as you can. Get involved in local community projects and become known as a good guy. It's much easier to develop these kind of relationships now before people become too stressed out and fearful. To your stockpile add things which could be bartered without leaving you short.

It's easy to scare oneself with tales of mobs and torch-lit pogroms and God knows what else but moving abroad also opens up tremendous possibilities and for many people the benefits vastly out-weigh the costs. If one is sensible, makes an effort to integrate, and accepts that there will inevitably be problems involved in living in a new country, it's entirely possible to benefit enormously. Unfortunately, ex-pats are a pretty gruesome bunch and, in my experience, only rarely think moving abroad will be anything other than a sunnier version of their previous existence in England.

Hi everyone thanks for the responses.

I haven't forgotten about you lot or ignored your advice, I just like to let my threads develop in their own way. I have been taking note of all the advice given.

I don't really have that much love for this country (hope I don't upset anyone with that ) so staying here is difficult advice to accept even though I see the wisdom in it. We need the outside world more than we would ever admit so some of the more loutish ex-pats should be more considerate when peeing all over their new nations culture and society. Leaving opens a whole world of possibilites and scenarios whilst staying here means facing up to an increasingly right-wing nation and troubled politics but on the other hand it's one of the few safehavens where we all hate each other equally anyway and no where else will offer us a place to stay if their own home is burning.

My neighbours aren't a friendly bunch, I guess they see us as too working class and shabby for their high and mighty Middle England views. They treat each other just fine but look down on my family who have been living here 7 years. So I can't really rely seeing them being hospitable or understanding their predicament without blaming everything on foreigners as usual.

Thanks for your responses and thanks so much for listening me drone on and rehash everything for no particular reason as I always do

Toadstool wrote:I don't really have that much love for this country (hope I don't upset anyone with that )

Neither did I, particularly, until I left! And now, although I'm happy in Spain, I do miss England dearly! As the song goes, "you don't know what you got ?til it?s gone!"

Toadstool wrote:My neighbours aren't a friendly bunch, I guess they see us as too working class and shabby for their high and mighty Middle England views. They treat each other just fine but look down on my family who have been living here 7 years. So I can't really rely seeing them being hospitable or understanding their predicament without blaming everything on foreigners as usual.

Haven?t you thought about moving elsewhere in the UK? Moving abroad seems a bit drastic!

Our neighbours moved in shortly after us to 'escape' unfriendly/unpleasant neighbours where they used to live. They seem to be very happy with the move.

I personally wouldn't want to head abroad at this point in time although I know of otheers who have done it in the last few months. One chap is now in Dubai (with his young family) earning a big pile of cash. Too hot for me!