Dubai, 8 years further on

In 2018 I wrote a small piece about an airport arrival in Dubai.

I is for Immigration in Dubai February 2018

When work a career finishes and in my case, retirement loomed I left the UAE. It was a wonderful few years to live in Duabi after the quiet backwater of Bahrain and it was just before the expansion of Dubai that today sees some 240,000 British expatriates living there.

So, in March 2026 encouraged with the relentless and terrible news about the destruction of the old Gulf order, I have been struck by a couple of stories that have worried me and I wanted to make my thoughts public.

I think it started with the collective cries of help from the 240,000 British Nationals in the UAE for the UK to help and evacuate them. Of course this number and even though just 100,000 have registered would be impossible.

With an Emirates A-380 in an all-economy class configuration of 853 it would take almost 120 flights to evacuate 100,000 people and that does not consider that various folk may not want Economy Class even if the UK pays.

But the UK press of course jumped on this, with the usual stories of the expatriate tax-free and rain free life that influencers, washed up footballers, the Beckhams, and sundry folk who have left the UK to enjoy, this seems like the easy life. It further did not help that SKY News, C4 and the BBC chose fair haired, be-jewelled and much made up beauties to report from their high rises with a blue sky with a missile streaking overhead, telling us how safe they felt. It is an offence to say anything else and they would not want their ideal life to be cut short by deportation!

What is the truth here? Well from my experience there are a couple of points. In the era of global taxation, should you be lucky enough to own a UK property or have a UK pension you have to pay tax in the UK, and the loophole of selling a residence to avoid capital gains has gone as well, that is if you have two houses. Still the point is that there are taxes and don’t start on the cost of alcohol, electricity, food, taxis, rent and yes an employment tax on employing a domestic person, what a burden.

Then not all 240,000 even like football or the Beckhams but many have a living carved out of flogging real estate on a commission only basis, working in shops and bars, air crew, hair dressers and most share flats and yes, the weather is good but you don’t have a family and females are at the mercy of the prying and the unwanted attention from overweight and indulged males in bars where they start their evening hunting.

Then we get the Isabel Oakshot, she being the fragrant partner of the the MP Richard Tice who has relocated to Dubai. I felt so disgusted about her post on the Telegraph today that I had to comment. It was about her overly pampered children that complained that their Dyson Hair Dryer had to be left behind as they scurried to the basement during an air raid. But weren’t they lucky as they arranged an UBER EATS to deliver their breakfast cereal so as the darlings would not go hungry. It was amazing that the Telegraph published this, and the comments bordered on the dangerous. Yes, she is one of the privileged, with constant A/C, food delivered, beds being made by countless slaves, I mean maids and not a care in sight to disturb her perfect hair style.

And this brings me to the other story.

On SKY today there was an interview with a Bangladesh family who are mourning their father killed in Abu Dhabi. He was a water deliverer who too was an expatriate who moved to the UAE to make money to send home so they could put a real roof over their what is now a concrete mess in Dhaka. I wonder if BIMAN Airlines is sending evacuation flights, not a chance as they need to poor souls to stay and earn and send back money. It is also likely that his passport would have been confiscated and he was therefore invisible until a missile from Iran cut him down.

Imagine the outcry if the Oakshots had suffered, but for Mr. Haq there will be little concern. I just hope that Isabel asked her UBER EATS driver to share breakfast or at least had given him a huge tip. I live in hope. She left the UK because of VAT on school fees, really? It is tragic that these two expatriates whose lives intersected are remembered, one forever and the other forgotten. I know who I will remember, Mr. Haq. But she like many will not give another thought until the late delivery of food allows her the berate the next driver.