It was the clip of angry students shouting “Farage for PM!” that really struck me. My boyfriend and I had recently confirmed our decision to leave our beachside flat in Sydney and move back to the UK to be closer to family. Almost immediately, my Instagram feed became a steady stream of Reform voters, “bloodbath Britain” clips and viral guides on how to trick your way into a job in the “positive discrimination mess” that is Keir Starmer’s UK. It was as though everyone on social media was screaming at me to stay away. Synagogues being set on fire, machete-wielding gangs in south London parks, renters having to change cities because they couldn’t afford a flat. I’d only been gone 18 months – had life in the UK really got that bad?
A friend had mentioned some kind of altercation at the M&S on Clapham High Street, and my mum muttered about cyclist muggings in Richmond Park – but I’d dismissed both as one-off scare stories. Maybe I was wrong: were we making some kind of terrible mistake moving home? Two months into our return, I have yet to have a phone stolen or witness knife crime in my local park. Our council tax is £500-a-year higher than before we moved to Australia and we did wake up to a sinkhole on our street the other day, but – whisper it – London actually seems quite… normal? Chaotic, slightly grey, quite pleasant if you catch it at the right moment. A traffic warden even said hello to me this morning. Have I missed something?
The Numbers Game
You would certainly think so if you look at the latest net migration stats. According to the Office for National Statistics, record numbers of young Brits are turning their backs on the UK – with 75,000 more 16 to 34-year-olds leaving the country than returning in the year to December 2025. High taxes and rents, youth unemployment and a rise in antisemitic attacks are widely cited as young expats’ reasons for fleeing to cities like Dubai, Hong Kong and Sydney. On paper, at least, my partner and I are heading in the wrong direction.
And yet, these issues aren’t UK-specific. Just look at Sydney, where 15 people were killed in an antisemitic shooting attack on Bondi Beach just half a year ago. That attack wasn’t a one-off: hate crime against Jews in Australia is rising to the point that Jewish friends are genuinely speaking of leaving. The jobs and rental markets weren’t all sunshine and rainbows, either. Year-long job hunts, 30 per cent pay cuts and higher-than-London rents were among the stories being shared by friends in major cities like Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.
Social Media vs Reality
Perhaps it’s patriotism speaking or the rose-tinted-glasses nature of being newly home, but the Britain that social media had warned me about in Australia didn’t greet me at the airport. In fact, rather rudely, I’m not sure it’s actually greeted me at all since I moved home seven weeks ago. None of those machete fights or phone-snatching clips I saw were invented, sure – but none of them came with the context that comes with actually living here. From a distance, they didn’t look like isolated incidents. They looked like a country in constant disorder. Is it really a coincidence that the majority of those fleeing the country are the same generation who have grown up online?
None of which is to say I can blame anyone for leaving. In Australia, my fellow expats and I often discussed our dilemma: stay in Britain, with the potholes, uncertain politics and months-long waits for hospital appointments. Or leave all of that behind for a paradise where you can be paid 1.5 times your salary to swim with turtles before work and enjoy 180 days of sunshine a year – but never see family or friends. Obviously, we at least had the option of hopping on a plane home – at least until the war hit and the price of a return flight home rocketed to more than £2,000.
But on TikTok and Instagram, a similar question is being floated by thousands of twenty and thirtysomethings, coaxing their followers to join them in paradise. It’s rhetorical but when the choice between staying and leaving your home country is painted so simplistically, it’s no surprise which reality many young people choose. Social media flattens everything into extremes and distance distorts this even more. The moment you move abroad, you’re expected to draw a verdict in black and white (it was the best decision I ever made! I wish I’d never moved!) when the truth is like most things in life: neither all good nor all bad.
My 18 months living in Australia were just different, and I’ll probably feel slightly differently about it depending on which day you ask me – and what the weather’s doing. Grouse all you like about the UK and its politics – I’m sure I’ll be joining you next time my train is cancelled, or my phone is stolen. Just remember to look up from your screen occasionally and experience the UK that’s not been distilled into 60 seconds. Nigel Farage isn’t the prime minister yet. You can still find a flat that isn’t a shoebox with a bin view. And London hasn’t “fallen”, whatever that means. Unless you mean the stretch of road outside my new flat — in which case, I take it all back.
