Who am I?
I was born in Poland, but I was told by many Scots that I am Scottish too. I am not sure about that, but certainly it’s a great honour and a nice thing to hear. I lived there for most of my adult life.
I first arrived in Glasgow in 2005. In 2009 I was well settled – I was a university student, a regular columnist of a Polish language paper and worked as a police interpreter. By 2014 I considered it my home and was amazed what a wonderful country Scotland is once I had a chance to look closer at the independence campaign (see my reportage here).
In 2016, after that other referendum, I was no longer so sure. In 2018 I was assaulted by a guy who didn’t like Poles and lost a year of my life recovering from the injuries. In 2020 I could see how the UK – which had been on a downward spiral for some time – jumped off a cliff by implementing the craziest version of Brexit. In 2022 I was gone.
But I still have lots of friends there. Many of them are EU citizens. Every time I speak to them, I feel sorry for them and glad I made the right choice.
News from the old home
I spoke with an old friend. She’s also planning to leave, to return to Poland. According to her, nearly all the people we know from the EU are moving back to the continent, as “everything in Britain is collapsing”. Some of our mutual friends have already left.
Everyone shares “the horror stories” about the simplest things that get in the way of a comfortable life. “I am the only person in the company that currently has access to a dentist” – she said – “and this is just a tip of the iceberg. And you know I am not one to complain”.
Housing prices
She told me that rents in Glasgow’s Southside, where we both used to live, are so high that people who earned much more than we used to some years ago, can’t afford to live there now. I checked it and was shocked: a flat similar to the one I used to live in, in the same area, starts at £850 – I was paying £450 in 2018. In six years, prices have gone up astronomically. But I was paying £400 for a similar one back in 2007! Suddenly my €1270 rent in Helsinki looks like a great deal – especially as I’m getting much more for my money.
My friend is not one to bore me with endless stories, so she just gave me the big picture:
Everything is so bloody expensive that even though I earn £60,000 now, it feels the same as when I was making less than £35,000 in my last job.
It’s not that she’s complaining about the money. On the contrary, she knows how lucky she is to be paid such a good salary. It’s just that when she was making half of that, people on her current salary could afford a fancy car and a few luxury holidays a year. Whereas, now that she has reached that level, the cost of everything is skyrocketing.
Comparing life in Scotland and Finland
Two years ago, when I was researching my move to Helsinki, online data suggested that living in Finland’s capital is 11% to 13% more expensive than Glasgow. Now that I have settled in my new Finnish home, I find life is 3% cheaper. And while the website I consulted suggested that the quality of life in the two cities was comparable, now that I am here, that doesn’t seem true.
According to my friends who still live in Scotland, everything from public service to infrastructure is falling apart. I asked one friend about the roads in Scotland which I’d read were ridden with potholes. “Don’t get me started on that,” he answered. “I have to have my wheels realigned every few months, and I’ve already lost two tyres this year. In fact, a friend just phoned to ask if I can lend him my spare because he just hit a pothole and damaged two tyres!”
Some time ago there was an article in a local Finnish paper about a road that is in outrageous condition. You don’t have to speak Finnish, just click the link and check the picture to see what’s considered an outrageous, article-worthy, lorry-destroying pothole in Finland.
Exodus from the UK
Nearly every Eastern European I met during my years in Glasgow is planning to leave the UK. Of course, Europeans are not leaving Britain because there are potholes in the road – this is just a symptom of the general direction the country has been heading for years. But quality of life depends on little things like that.
I recently spoke to a German who has been living in Finland for twenty-five years about another reason Finland is so much better to live in than the UK: the country simply works; life is much less stressful if you don’t have to wonder if your bus will turn up in the morning, your bins will be emptied, there will be fresh vegetables in your local supermarket and if you can trust that if you’re in trouble, the state will be there to help you. If you have a choice and can move, why stay where life is harder?
Not everyone agrees
Of course, my tweets have been met with some angry replies, too. One accused me of “trying to destroy Britain and then running away”, simply because I support Scottish independence. Some point at Poland, with very outdated knowledge about what Poland is like now. They complain about the quality of the roads, for example, but they obviously haven’t driven in Poland for at least 15 years. And there is no understanding that, thanks to freedom of movement, we don’t have to “go back to where we came from”.
Then, there is the ultimate argument: in praise of the NHS, the object of envy of the whole world. Even today, people still believe that nowhere do people have it as good as in Britain. Meanwhile, it was on the brink of collapse even when I was still living in the UK. I last saw my GP in Scotland in 2020, and then only because I’d injured my knee and he could not examine me remotely. For anything else, I would generally have to rely on a telephone consultation, and that would be within a week, if I was lucky.
But…
This old knee injury caused me problems while I was on holiday in Poland. I was on a bus when the pain recurred. There’s a doctor’s surgery between the bus stop and my parents’ house, so I limped in to ask if there was a chance of seeing a doctor soon. Imagine my shock when the receptionist asked me if I could wait 20 minutes. (My parents said I was lucky, as they are usually only able to get next day appointments.) And, of course, with my Finnish EHIC card, it was free on the Polish public health service.
The doctor examined me and would have arranged an MRI, but as I was leaving soon, she gave me some painkillers and advised to seek help when I got back home if things didn’t improve on their own. Within a few weeks of my return to Finland, I’d had a face-to-face examination with a GP, and booked an X-Ray, MRI and orthopaedic consultation. Despite this, my Finnish teacher thinks their health service is awful and much too slow!
So what’s the take-away here?
I don’t know. I wish there were some politicians in Westminster who’d have the balls to admit that Brexit is not working, and trying to make it work will be – to quote a classic – “a Titanic success“. Because that’s how it feels talking to my friends in Glasgow: like getting news from the sinking ship. Except that because they still have their freedom of movement, they can jump ship. As for my British friends: you better find something to hold on to, because you are in for a rough ride.
