The simple maxim “go where you’re appreciated” has been echoing in my mind ever since Labour swept to victory in the 2024 general election.

We’ve had Labour governments before, of course, but when Tony Blair entered Downing Street in 1997, I didn’t feel the same sinking sense of worry that so many feel today. And now I understand why.

Blair’s New Labour introduced policies I didn’t love, but even those of us who leaned Tory still felt respected for what we contributed to the economy. That sentiment has vanished under Keir Starmer’s administration and its brigade of student union blowhards.

That’s why I’m urging ambitious young Brits to take a bold decision & move to Dubai.

This isn’t a throwaway line. I’m currently in discussions with business leaders, expats and Emiratis who, like me, are enthusiastic about creating a programme tasked with recruiting young UK talent, who would be fast-tracked through residency and visa issues, assisted with housing and parachuted into jobs Dubai desperately needs to maintain its rapid growth.

The logic is simple: go where you’re appreciated. Staying somewhere you’re taken for granted is a mug’s game.

A maxim made for this moment

“Go where you’re appreciated” has always been wise advice. But under today’s Labour Government, already revealing its instinctive suspicion of business, enterprise, and success, the phrase might as well be written in neon above Number 10.

Young people are flocking to Dubai for its cutting-edge tech ecosystem. Entrepreneurs recognise its massive opportunity. Skilled professionals see career paths and a standard of living that feels out of reach in Britain.

Meanwhile, Britain is squeezing its best and brightest with higher taxes, more regulation, and endless rhetoric about ‘fairness’ which translates into punishing success.

What’s happening isn’t just an elite exodus. It’s a brain drain

When headlines first broke about Britain’s richest residents moving abroad, politicians dismissed it as a “millionaire problem.” Yet global wealth analysts such as Henley & Partners estimated that 9,500–10,000 millionaires left the UK in 2024 – one of the biggest outflows anywhere in the world.

But the Government doesn’t want to acknowledge the next stage of the trend: the outflow has spread to skilled workers, graduates, tradespeople, young professionals, and anyone with ambition. In the year to June 2025, 172,000 British nationals emigrated long-term, making them the single largest group to leave the UK.

These people are not just those moving to lower tax economies, but young people leaving for cost-of-living reasons or to find a career they can’t find at home.

We’ve seen this before. When Labour last went all-in on tax-and-regulate politics, the beneficiaries were Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, countries that gained tens of thousands of talented Brits trained and educated at UK taxpayers’ expense.

But today, the landscape has changed.

The New Lands of Opportunity

The Arabian Gulf, and Dubai in particular, has emerged as the gravitational centre for global talent.

In just 50 years (less time than it takes Britain to approve a new rail line), the UAE has built global cities that stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Singapore, Hong Kong and New York as hubs of innovation, finance, logistics, and technology.

The UAE’s philosophy is unapologetically pro-enterprise: “Show us what you can do,” not “show us how much tax we can extract from you.”

Dubai respects ambition. It rewards graft. It welcomes people who want to build something extraordinary. Compare that with a UK government that treats success with suspicion, and it is no wonder a new generation is looking east.

What a UK–Dubai fast-track talent scheme could look like

The talent is in Britain; the opportunities are in Dubai. We need to join up the dots, and the solution I’m discussing with stakeholders in Dubai could take the shape of a streamlined programme that fast-tracks visas and residency processing, while guaranteeing job placements in high-demand sectors such as technology, engineering, the trades, hospitality, logistics, and finance.

It would also offer supported relocation services, including help with housing, and create a dedicated recruitment pipeline aligned to Dubai’s fastest-growing industries.

This kind of joined-up approach would make it easier for skilled British workers to access world-class opportunities overseas, while ensuring Dubai’s employers can draw on a reliable, well-matched pool of talent.

Where Britain would take years of committees and consultations, Dubai can deliver at lightning speed, because when the right people decide something should happen, it gets done.