Lord Robert Edmiston, one of Britain's wealthiest men and a prominent donor to pro-Brexit campaigns, has revealed he is considering leaving the UK for good and applying for permanent residency in Australia.
A Damning Verdict on the UK
The Conservative life peer, ranked 187th on the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated fortune of £855 million, delivered a stark assessment of a United Kingdom he described as being "in chaos". While he cited family connections and a preference for a warmer climate as key motivations for the potential move, Lord Edmiston also launched pointed criticisms against the National Health Service and the country's tax environment.
Lord Edmiston made his fortune through his IM Group empire, which began by importing cars and later expanded into property and finance. He was appointed a Conservative life peer in 2011 but retired from the House of Lords just four years later to concentrate on his evangelical charity, Christian Vision.
The Brexit Backer's New Horizon
A devout Christian and a major philanthropic donor, Lord Edmiston also played a significant financial role in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union. His company, IM Group, donated £850,000 to the official Vote Leave campaign ahead of the 2016 referendum, with his total contributions to pro-Brexit causes reaching £1 million.
With his son Andrew now taking a larger role in running the West Midlands-based IM Group, Lord Edmiston has been spending increasing time abroad. He semi-retired to Portugal in 2016 and has since built a property in Australia, where his brother, sister, and one of his daughters reside.
"It hasn’t been a final decision," he stated, "but my brother lives there, my sister lives there and one of my daughters lives there.... and I’ve got a charity base there. We are basically temporary residents, and at some point, we’ll probably become permanent residents." He confirmed he would still return to the UK periodically.
Critique of the NHS and the Tax Burden
When pressed on his reasons for considering the move, Lord Edmiston contrasted the Australian healthcare system with the NHS. He praised Australia's hybrid model, claiming he could get a doctor's appointment, blood test, and hospital referral "like that" – snapping his fingers – all within a month.
This stands in sharp contrast to the NHS in England, where the waiting list for hospital treatment stood at 6.25 million patients in March. "Why can’t we [UK] do that?" he asked. "I just think we’ve got to stand back... I think, increasingly, the public is starting to see it isn’t working, it’s broken."
He was equally critical of the UK's fiscal landscape. While his IM Group paid almost £14.5 million in tax on a £56 million profit in 2024, he lamented a system where "if you win, they tax you heavily, and you don’t keep much of it." He expressed frustration with constant obstacles for businesses and concern over speculated tax rises in the upcoming Autumn Budget, stating that such uncertainty forces businesses to put their "foot on the brake."
Although he described himself as "quite loyal" to the Conservatives, he admitted the party "didn’t do a good job last time around" and has a "nasty habit of knifing ourselves in the back." When asked if he would switch his allegiance to Nigel Farage's Reform UK, he declined to comment directly but concluded, "I think the country is in chaos."
