Bittersweet first Grandchild

Congratulations, wonderful news for you. There is though always another side. Nephew who has lived in Africa, Australia and EU countries has decided to move back to UK permanently. Bringing his family of course. He feels the countries he has enjoyed have slowly deteriorated, high taxation, high cost of living, property expensive, health care horrendously expensive. Has noticed his family life deteriorate with longer working hours to maintain standards. EU grants can end at a whim, no guarantee and unemployment is increasing everywhere. Thought about Canada but even as a medic he would have no guarantee of work. His wife is a Prof teaching in Universities. Redundancies taking place in Canadian education. You have to look at the wider and long term picture. Your family have made decisions and may well have sooner or later made the same ones Brexit or no Brexit, you'll never know.

I am impressed by the speed of their arrangements. The result of the general election was only last Friday!!!!

Anyone who can remember this country before we joined the EU will recall that things were not that great. Hardly a golden era. I doubt very much that any manufacturing jobs will come back either.

To the people on here who “don’t know anyone who’s lost their job due to Brexit” have they spent the last 3 years with their heads in buckets ? Many many businesses have moved from the UK to other countries inside and outside of Europe and in addition many EU citizens living and working in the UK have been made to feel so unwelcome they’ve moved out of the UK, some lived and worked here for years.....please don’t pretend this hasn’t happened !

Congratulations Dilly, I hope the 'home country' is in Europe as travelling will be feasible on a regular basis for you. My DS and family live in the Netherlands and I visit for a week each 6-8 weeks. In between, we use WhatsApp and the little ones begin to realise quite early that it really is you on the screen. Even though it would be lovely to have them nearer, I also enjoy the trips over to see them and you may find this too. Your family will look forward to your stays also. Enjoy every moment and best wishes too.

Theses plans must have been in place for a long time. I’m sure the election vote has nothing whatsoever to do with it. People emigrate for a better life but the grass is not always greener. I have a son and family in USA and a daughter and family In Perth Australia. Yes we miss them terribly but much more satisfying to see them living their best life than doing what generations before them have done and stay in the same area all their life. You should congratulate yourself on bringing up an adult who has the courage to change their course of life. Yes FaceTime and messenger brings everyone so much closer.

While I am very sympathetic your children and grandchild will be away I have to say you brought this on yourself. Brexit was completely toxic and will continue to be as people wake up to the realities. My son works for a multinational company in London and it employs people from many countries and the result has caused awful problems after years of increased abuse(even for their children born in the UK because parents are from elsewhere in Europe). My son was desperately upset by the result and we can only hope we will be able to to get back to the EU eventually.
With that and more awful climate change I fear for my grandson's future.

Maddyone is right,this has all been happening long before brexit,seems like its the thing to blame now for everything though..and im thinking Dillythegardener's son might have moved to canada anyway,even if we were to stay in EU,as its where his wife is from.and she clearly wants to migrate home,(that could be a strong nesting instinct due to pregnancy?)so he's going too.that could have happened anyway regardless of brexit,as others have said.

My daughter and soon-to-be son in law have been thinking of emigrating to Canada for a little while. They are not in a position to do so just now but Brexit has really cemented their plans for the future so I will face a sad farewell in the future to them and two grandsons and two step grandsons.

So the brain drain has begun we are also expecting our children to move out of the country because of Brexit. We tried our best to stop it but no one would listen so now we all have to pay.

This happened to us when Mrs Thatcher took over, destroyed the unions and engineering along with it. Her catch phrase was 'get on your bike and look for work' so not by choice but necessity, we moved to Europe. We knew from first hand experience what it will be like if we leave the EU.

Who are we to complain or moan after all we live in a 'democracy' and the 'people' have spoken. So all we can do now is watch the country destroy itself whilst the young leave. Still we can rely on Trump.

My Christmas wish is that we leave too, there's not much to look forward here now BJ is in control. Sadly too old so have to just put up and shut up as the Brexiteers keep telling us. Well I don't want to hear those people who voted for the cons, complaining when it all goes wrong. As the old saying goes ' if it is too good to to be true then it isn't real', Whatever the cons promised you to get your vote is not real and will not happen. If it hasn't happened in the last ten years they have been in power, why oh why will it happen now? The reality is that many companies will leave this country taking our children and grand children with them just like the pied piper of Hamlyn.
Merry Christmas

carlyd7 your friend’s experiences mirror my friendship group too. I feel for your friend losing her two grandchildren living close by. My mil lived next door to me and my mother when she was alive lived a street over, and I hoped that would be my be my experience too as a grandmother.
I’m going to have to find creative ways to be involved, a friend suggested record myself reading books on tape, and sending the picture book along with the tape. There are favourites that my son’s both loved.

*nannan2 and Maddyone
uk businesses have already made decisions based on brexit rather than my children. My younger son’s position was made redundant as the company moved it’s base to an eu country because of brexit. My younger son is a real homebody and would remain living in our area with his friends and football team if he could. Retraining is not a very sensible option as he is at an age where he needs to be earning money to buy a house, not train in a new field for an unknown job market here.
Same goes for the other two, why would they retrain when they are still paying off student loans for their degrees?
I wish there was an easier out too, so I do understand people trying to make sense of it, but neither child wanted this.

My answer may be controversial , but there will be plenty of grants still Post Brexit and using this as an excuse to leave the UK is not totally the whole story see www.ukri.org/research/international/ukri-eu-exit/

DillytheGardener - Congratulations regarding your grandchild. Grandchildren are a joy. You are not wanting any advice, just wanting to comment, as is your right to do so. So here is my offfering;
People have been emigrating for hundreds of years seeking a better life for their families and why not. Just because you and I voted to leave the EU will not change this. It may be another consideration in their decision making process but will not be the only factor in their choice. As is the same when choosing who to vote for in an election. The monetary figure emblazoned on the side of a bus is not the only factor why someone may vote to leave. Your children seem to have had a good education and upbringing, that would be credit to you and the choices and decisions you made in life. You did well by them. So to be as unkind and say who you chose to vote for is the reason why they are leaving and you only have yourself to blame is bloody cheeky and ungrateful. You could take them down a peg or two but you probably haven't the emotionally energy because they have left you still reeling from their news - you have a new grandchild on the way but you won't see it often because of the way you voted. Hopefully they will do very well and it will be the best thing they did. They will then be able to rescue you from this terrible country and enable you to have the life you deserve or will it be a case of you made your bed now lie in it. All the best to you.

I don't want to be critical and I know everyone who voted for Brexit thought they were doing the right thing. But did you not see how the break up with Europe would change things hugely. We will be isolated to a certain extent. Instead of being within a large supportive group we will be on our own and have to fend for ourselves.
If this was a group of friends who support each other and are there for each other, even if perhaps occasionally you disagree, you would not want to walk away from them and carry on alone.

Just another thought - wouldn't it be wonderful that in a perfect world those who wanted to remain in the EU could emigrate to an EU country of their choice and Britain could take in citizens of those countries who would love, chrish and support Great Britain, who would not only talk it up but build it up rather than talking and knocking it down.

DillytheGardener, Congratulations on having a grand child, even if he/she is abroad. Im my experience having had a daughter in the USA where she had two children, we kept in touch more then when she was away rather than now that she is back in the UK.
I definitely didn't vote for Brexit!

Why don’t you go too? My sil emigrated to Canada and my good friend to Auz, nothing to do with Brexit but when the kids were born Mil goes twice a year to stay for 3 months at a time, so half the year there and my friends mum has bought a small apartment in Auz and spends all of the winter there.
Peopjj OK e have always emigrated, this thread doesn’t ring true to me, I think it’s just another remoaner taking a new angle.
Get over yourselves remoaners- people voted, TWICE!

Tigertooth. I agree, this thread does not ring true.

Congrats and I really wouldn’t look too far ahead. I reckon we draw conclusions about the future, thinking we know how they will be for us...and can then be very wrong. Take each day at a time, enjoy the next few weeks, plan a visit, and see how it goes...I agree with other posters, sometimes you see more of your gc when they are far away!

Dillythe Gardener

That is sad, but these things were an inevitable consequence of the decision to leave the EU.

We paid into the 'club' and we got a good deal back, whether arts funding, or economic regeneration, as happened in Merseyside.

What I still fail to understand is why so many people who voted to leave seem to have thought we got nothing back.

Isn't the issue no deal or B.J deal ?
Surely that's the question before planning a move.
For me there's still uncertainty until we know which way it will go. Regardless of views and how people voted, there’s always a bottom line.
For me that line is, a country outside the customs union cannot have the same rights and benefits as an E.U. member state!

That's an interesting view Tigertooth.

Since leave "won", where can I find out what it is we have "won"?

Is it not the case that the leave campaign has been going on for years - hence Nigel Farage, the ex-Tory - who has led this campaign.

Isn't that 'moaning', and shouldn't he have 'got over it' since the UK was a member of the EU for over 40 years, and has had many benefits.

So perhaps a campaign should now be started to join the EU, and if it takes 10 or 20 years - why not?

I live near Nissan UK. The majority of voters in this area voted Leave. Now they are surprised that Nissan is reducing it’s production and workforce here. Despite now seeing the fallout of this and for people like the OP, the country has now re-elected a Tory Government to guarantee Brexit As another poster said, you reap what you sow. I don’t recognise my fragmented, intolerant, xenophobic country anymore

Stella14 - I agree with you, I find myself lost in a country that has become more judgemental, finger wagging, and more intolerant.

The writing has been spelled out in words of one syllable to Nissan employees for a couple of years. It amazes me that they voted to lose their jobs.

While I am truly sorry for you I am afraid we will be hearing many more of these I didn't realise stories from people who voted to leave.