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From The Times and The Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Luke Jones.
One thing that becomes very apparent if you have anything like TikTok or anything like Instagram is that you will start to see Dubai. If you follow any British influencer, you will start to see Dubai. Dubai is the world's biggest TikTok location. It's number one. And so you start to see it in the corner of your eye. Then something else happens, which was a friend of mine
was on a layover in Dubai, had sort of two days there and kept sending me photos of the city and its strangeness and also its sort of massiveness, its giganticness in what ways? Skyscrapers, I mean, huge skyscrapers everywhere and they flow out of the desert and their very haphazard from street level. It looks quite strange, strange sort of smashed up jigs or puzzle of a place. And this I found fascinating, but then something more interesting happens, something that made me want to write about it,
which was that when he came back to dear old England, we were talking on the phone about this and he described his journey back. So he lands, he throws Gatwick wherever and he had to go to a sort of regional English city straight away. And on the train there,
every single door to the lavatory on this train had just been smashed. Someone had just smashed up all the doors. He really needed to go to the loop. And while he was standing there, he realized that his shoes had been soaked by someone's previous, you know, outing business.
Yes, so he gets off from the train, goes to the Lou in the train station. And as he's sort of sitting there, he looks and sees an advert for the Samaritans. And it just says, you know, don't take things too far. And he sees one of these adverts. And then as he leaves the train station, he passes a police car where two gentlemen are doing some Class A drugs in the shades of this police car. And he said it was such
a crazy shock to go from Dubai, which is very safe, very clean, very orderly in most parts or the parts that he saw, and then straight back to Britain. And I realise something straight away, which is important, I think, when you're writing, pattern recognition. I've heard this version, this story from so many people in the last two or three years.
and it's not just people our reporter Will Lloyd knows. No, there's something about Dubai that is attracting Brits. Yes, it's authoritarian, but it's well-kempt. There are fears of misogyny, homophobia and racism in law, industry and society, but there are also lovely pools. It's the third choice for British expats now, and in the last five years, the number making inquiries about moving there has shot up fourfold.
What is the fact that so many of us are making our home there, say about our own society? And could a labour budget, squeezing incomes tempt even more to take the leap? The story today, freedom versus flash, why young Brits are turning to Dubai?
My name is Will Lloyd. I am a news reporter at the Sunday Times. Interesting. What kind of thing? Um, wherever they tell me to go, I will go do what you're contractually obliged to. I was very excited. I started in April. I was very excited with this job because I knew I'd have no more freedom and I'd be told what to do. And I was very excited about this, excited just to obey, obey the orders actually. It really is such a great job. It could be anything.
Here we're talking about Dubai and it's a lure. You were talking about that conversation you had with your friend who had that juxtaposition of Dubai as he saw it and then Britain as he returned to it. And that is an experience that actually has a name.
Well, it made me think of Paris syndrome. OK, so Paris syndrome in the late 1980s, a Japanese psychologist who I believe was stationed in Paris. He noticed that he was getting a lot of Japanese tourists coming to him in Paris, saying that the city didn't quite measure up to what they expected, you know, the city of Moulin Rouge, this this to lose the track.
this beautiful late 19th century Fonda C. Echler kind of place of romance and dazzle, and the gap between your imagination and the reality actually causes people to have a sort of psychological bit of a miniature breakdown. And I think there's something else going on now, which is that the British version is it's not coming back to Britain thinking, oh, Britain isn't what I thought it was.
people come back from a holiday and they sort of get a version of Paris syndrome where actually they realise Britain is more rubbish than they thought it was. I think that's what happens. I think when the train gets delayed and the weather starts pushing down on you and you see that
You can ascribe it to the economy. You can ascribe it to our politics in the last 20 years. But the country does have this slight edge to it. And I don't think it's a good edge. And I think that's what people, that's the kind of conversations I have with people. And that's the sort of Britain syndrome that people get when they return from somewhere, which on the surface is very flash and clean and lovely Dubai. There are some people that go a step further and who just up sticks and think, well, right, I'm going to leave Britain. I'm going to make my life in Dubai in this paradise.
Well, yes, yes. So I became more and more interested in this. So Dubai is the third largest place for British expats. There's 240,000 British expats in Dubai. 240,000, yes, 240,000. And what's also interesting... And Dubai isn't like a massive place. It is just a big city. Dubai is smaller than the smallest US state. So it's smaller than Rhode Island in the US. It's very, very small. If you look at what people tell pollsters in this country at the moment,
30% of 18 to 24-year-old say that they was quite like to leave Britain. 50% of us, supposedly, have considered moving abroad for better opportunities. One of the great ironies of Britain's position at the moment is that globalization, which was something that we really embraced in the late 1990s,
We were supposed to be the ones who benefited from it and accrued the rewards of it. If you go back and look at speeches that Tony Blair made, he said, if we seize this opportunity, we can not only prove that our values are right, but we can also make ourselves richer and happier. But he said, we had to seize the opportunity. Isn't it interesting that in some ways, I have a sense now that actually
the opportunities have accumulated to other places, Dubai being one of them. And instead of people coming here, very highly skilled workers coming here, they're actually flooding cities like Dubai. And we'll get to what the issues might be with Dubai in a moment. But in terms of the attraction, it is
Sunshine, what kind of opportunity? I imagine something in a favorable tax system. No, no tax. Okay. So that's quite a favorable. I think that has to be number one, doesn't it? That has to be number one. And I think, obviously, you know, if you're 35 in London, have three kids, you know, your new partner can both work. You can still be paying off student loans. You could still be renting. You know, you could, there were all kinds of situations I can think of people I know where they now do think.
like, could I, could I just go and not pay tax? And I know that sounds, that sounds deeply unpatriotic, doesn't it, in some respects? And I'm certainly not suggesting that we all, you know, decamps to buy, but it does have an attraction to people. And I think that attraction mingles with the, the push factors in Britain at the moment. Yes. And you spoke to an early adopter in all of this, a lady called Nicole. What did she say about why she made that jump?
What was interesting, she had a longer experience. So she moved to Dubai just before the crash, the economic crash of 2008. And it really was about better quality of life, better career progression. She said it was quicker to rise in Dubai. Then yeah, then the crash happens.
and divide just every such a good lifestyle. But yeah, you just don't want to come back, no taxes. It's health care. It's just a really, really good expat lifestyle. I mean, I look at, you know, I come back here on holidays and no one goes out and, well, they've got to punch child care. Everyone's got an age over there.
And I think generally the sense that you could make more money, have a nicer life, enjoy better weather, and also still be surrounded by British people in that classic kind of expat way. You would still be living with expat. You'd still sort of be almost like you're on holiday.
I mean, we go hiking in the mountains and barbecues up in there a long time. Yes, I imagine if I was younger, if I was 22, I'd be in all the bars and doing the Instagram stuff. But it's not all like that. It's not how it's made people trade out to be. Almost like you're not really having to face the usual kind of drudgery.
Except I don't know about your corner of Britain. Mine is a jam-packed full of Lamborghinis and plastic surgery. No, mine is not either. Is that not the sort of what might put you off to buy at least on the sort of vibe front? Is the flashiness of it? Yeah, there's definitely a sense that this is one of the most vulgar places in the world right now and possibly in sort of human history. Like it might be as bad as sort of Venice in the 18th century or something.
known for a very amoral culture and a very hard materialistic culture. So, yes, so how much money you earn, the car that you drive, the club that you can go to, all of these things have made do by extraordinarily popular. For most people, and I feel very, very rich because the health insurance, I've seen your employers pay your health insurance, but I'm actually very wealthy once you get to United Kingdom 60.
you're coming back and this is what I see as a big problem for the UK is that you've got your brain drain, you've got young people that can't afford to live there and are moving to Dubai so therefore not paying taxes in the UK and contribute it and you've got to import your labour and your teachers and then they're all going to come back and claim their pensions.
And what did you make of her experience and how she saw it? I can see why it would be sensible to do what she's done. I can see why people would do it. And I feel like I can understand why increasing numbers of people would want to do that. Because I think this is one of those
It feels like the country has stuck up its own armpit in some way. One very interesting thing about reporting in Britain at the moment is wherever you go, there can be Northern Ireland, there can be Wales, wherever you go, one phrase has come up more and more in my reporting with ordinary people on the street. They say it's a bit third world.
If you hit that 10 times in six months from every type of person in any kind of profession, every kind of town in the country, you do start to think, oh, okay.
And Dubai hasn't necessarily always been the enormous skyscrapers and the gold sandwiches on Penthouse restaurants and the rest. Explain actually how it came to be what it is now and what it was historically.
So in the 19th century, the Persian Gulf, which Dubai is sort of on the coast of, is effectively a British lake. In the 1820s, the British Navy, the Royal Navy chases out some pirates, and these Emirati sort of small cities, small city states are under the protection of the British Empire.
They are under a sort of treaty arrangement with British, and this lasts for a very, very long time. And in 1968, Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister, says Britain can no longer afford to have an empire east of Suez. Come on, lads, let's wrap it all up. So the British start withdrawing.
And there's great sadness, actually. There's great sadness among the rulers of these states, one of whom says the whole coast, people and rulers would all support retaining British forces in the Gulf. For over a century, these emirs had effectively outsourced their security to the British, and it was a good arrangement that basically worked for them.
So in 1971, they formed the UAE. These Emiratis come together. Abu Dhabi is the capital. Most of the oil is in Abu Dhabi, but Dubai has its own sources of oil. And oil revenue by the mid-70s is increasing. Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. And the links with Britain remain. So in 1979, Queen Elizabeth II,
visits Dubai and opens the Dubai World Trade Center. The photos are quite silly, I think, and quite enjoyable to look at if you'd like to Google them. And she opens the first skyscraper in the Middle East. She's the original influencer. She is the original influencer. And the shake of Dubai's Sheikh Rashid is saying, I'm going to make Dubai the Hong Kong of the Middle East. And how does the world greet this pronouncement largely with mockery and laughter? Because nobody thinks
that this place, which was effectively a sort of gold smuggling, houses made out of sand and coral, kind of backwater, nobody believes that you can make Hong Kong here. Well, you know, who is laughing now? And now it is this, you know, booming city, one of many Emirates. There are three and a half million people who live there as discussed. Lots of people are moving there, but there are a lot of problems.
Yes, and I think there's another side of the city where you might see it as a sort of moneyed cosmopolitan Benadorm where the skyscrapers have been built by migrant slaves.
Coming up, what is the price that has been paid for on the face of it such an attractive city? Are Brits turning a blind eye to part of the problem? Or are we being hypocritical? More from Will in a sack.
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Well, we've been discussing Dubai and how it has come to be this shining, moneyed, flash, wealthy city that has attracted not just people from around the world, but loads and loads of Brits are not just holidaying there, but actually moving there as well, such as their frustration with how things are going at home. There is a fly in the ointment, though, which is you are at risk of being put in prison for variety of things.
Yes, it's a one man show. The concept of human rights doesn't really exist there. If you're an ex part, you're not a citizen of Dubai. I think the closest relationship would almost be a contractual relationship. You sort of sign a contract with the one man show. You expect it to do all these things like keep it safe and clean and oddly, allow you to make money.
But if you get on the wrong side of the rules, have no doubt. It's not, again, it's not like Britain where you can sort of steal a bike 40 times before you go to prison. If you do one thing wrong, you're going to get chucked out or you're going to go to prison. I mean, it's an authoritarian state. Some of these things aren't necessarily even things that we'd see as being wrong. I mean, if someone had a same-sex relationship or even there was that case of that air hostess who was in a sort of abusive relationship and attempted suicide and then was arrested for it. So it's quite
dystopian reasons that you might come out of the law as well. This is not a set of although although in some ways some of some of Dubai's laws are based on on British common law. I think the understanding of what is appropriate and what is legal is very very different and it certainly wouldn't match what we what I think most British people would consider to be a fair humane approach to human relationships or morality. I don't think it really matches that.
Yeah. And what does it say about, I mean, they're not here to defend themselves, but the people who decide to go and spend a bit of time in Dubai or make a new life in Dubai as expats, that they're enjoying all these clean pavements and the rest, but not wondering about migrant labour that might have cleaned them up or the awful things that happened to actually build those gleaming skyscrapers.
It's very interesting because if you take this approach, I think one has almost always inevitably said in response is, OK, fine. But what about Britain? What about what you've done? What about what happens in your country? What about the human rights abuses in your country? How dare you judge us? How dare you look at us and say that we've got things wrong when, for instance, on the issue of forced labor in Dubai,
One thing that strikes me about modern Britain, and this has come out of reporting on the asylum system, which is very, very broken at the moment, is that we have our own sort of version of what Dubai has. It may be less formalised, but we have a very large black economy in this country. Nobody's quite sure how large it is.
There are many asylum seekers who are working in very, very poor or former asylum seekers working in very, very poor conditions. They've got no real rights, working in kitchens and as delivery drivers, car washes, things like cannabis factories all around the country. And again, the numbers of people involved in that sort of netherworld of the British economy, we don't really know. We don't really know. I mean, is it comparable to what might be happening in Dubai in terms of a share?
I suppose if you have 100,000 people in this country working in those conditions.
Say it was 100,000. I mean, some people have said there's 130,000 modern slaves in the UK. Can you then, when you have that on your doorstep, actually visible in most British cities now, can you then throw rocks at people who decide to leave and go to Dubai? I think it's more difficult. I always think maybe we should, you know, you get your house in order slightly before you critique others. But again, I know that that might might not persuade everybody.
But does it not depress you to think that some people's reaction is, well, I'd much rather live in a place where, OK, they lock up gays and they kill people. But at least we haven't got so many homeless people on the streets. I think that it should. Really, the reason why I wrote the piece was I think it should challenge us.
to try and improve Britain in these basic ways of civil society ways, because it is deeply unsettling, actually, as you say, that people would be so put off by Britain.
that they would go somewhere which is effectively, as you say, a pretty tough authoritarian regime. Once you get past the influences and you get past the, you know, the vodka floats. And not to really worry people about this, but there's a sort of surprising chunk of people who say that they don't feel like democracy is working for them.
Is there a worry that if there's, how many was it? I pushed Chex Paks in to divide. There's 240,000 people who say what do you think Britain is pants? That's quite a worrying siren call for what other people might be thinking in the United Kingdom.
Well, we know that millennials in this country don't have a particularly favorable view of democracy anymore. Why is that? Because I think because it can't really, it seems so broken at the moment that it can't provide people with these basics, basics of things that work. When you interact with the state, when you try and get a GP's appointment, it works. When you walk around the street at night, you feel safe. These slightly basic things that Dubai has got right.
And one of the great challenges, I think, and Joe Biden, Joe Biden talked about this. He characterized the censure as a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy. And it is unsettling to me that some of these authoritarian states, where there is no democracy, there is no ability to protest, there's no ability to speak freely. Some of them are becoming very, very attractive.
especially to young people in this country, because they simply do things that our state no longer seems to be able to do very competently. What questions do you think that leads for us here and the people in charge? I think we have to hope that we've had some bumps in the road after a pretty rough 10 years and that the present government can fix the foundations, as they like to say.
And we can begin to rebuild the public realm in a way that makes people feel as if the country is going in the right direction. And you look at Kitestalma and you hear the budget and you think we're on that track? I'm not sure we are, but I feel like it's quite important actually at the moment.
Because to me, this is about as bad as it's been in my lifetime. I think it's important to hope that the government actually does well, regardless of your political affiliation. I do. I look at here in his glasses, which he didn't buy or whatever. And I think I hope I hope.
I hope you know what you're doing, because it's almost upsetting to think, oh, well, if one's going to go to Dubai or Singapore, I think it's sad. And obviously, it's probably quite bad for the tax base of the country if very productive people are swarming off abroad.
And on that point, finally, a very productive person. Have you been tempted after all this reporting? Have you been on whatever the Dubai equivalent of right move is? Absolutely not, no. Although it would be incredible to exchange the shoebox that I live in for a three-bedroom villa full of servants. And I could live like a sort of 19th century potenti, but I'm not going to be doing that, no.
We're Lloyd, reporter at the Sunday Times. While making this podcast, we got in touch with the authorities in the United Arab Emirates. They told us, quote, the UAE strongly disputes the misinformed and misleading statements, alleging the existence of migrant slaves, a lack of human rights, and forced labor within Dubai and the broader UAE. These allegations do not reflect the country's policies, practices, or values, they say.
as well as the significant strides the countries made to protect workers' rights and foster an inclusive society. They add migrant workers play an integral role in our nation's development, and their rights are protected by robust legislation that aligns with international standards. You can read more of Will's work. If you've got a digital subscription to The Times, head to TheTimes.com. We'll put a link to his piece back to buy in the description of this episode.
That's it from us today, the producers will vote, the executive producer was Fiona Leach, and sound design and theme composition was by Malasato. I'm Luke Jones, see you soon.
How often can you say a gift is truly unique? When you gift a loved one an Ancestry DNA test, you're giving them the keys to unlock their own personal journey of discovery. And with our festive sale now on, you can save on a truly meaningful gift. Help them discover their heritage, learn about their ancestors, and make new family connections this Christmas. Visit ancestry.co.uk to give them a gift that is truly unique. Terms apply.
