British Abroad

In our earlier piece, Raising the State Pension age to 75: a betrayal, we argued that pushing the State Pension age into people’s mid seventies would break the basic deal workers and voluntary contributors have relied on for decades. Since then, the argument has shifted up a gear. A 20 year State Pension. Former pensions minister Steve Webb and consultancy LCP have gone public with a new package of “radical reforms”. They say it is time to stop thinking of the State Pension as something you receive from a fixed age until death, and start thinking of it as something… Read more: 20 Year State Pension? A Warning

Calls to push the UK State Pension age (SPA) towards 75 have resurfaced as government restarts a formal review and revives a Pensions Commission. The argument goes like this: we’re living longer, the bill is ballooning, so everyone should work longer. It sounds pragmatic but in our opinion it’s a blunt, regressive policy that shifts risk onto those least able to bear it and it breaks faith with millions who have planned around the rules, including those of us who’ve kept paying in from overseas. A fresh SPA review is underway and heavyweight ‘pension experts’ like Tom McPhail at the… Read more: Raising the State Pension age to 75? A betrayal

The Pension Raid No One Saw Coming For British expats with any defined benefit / DB pensions, a quiet but consequential change is on the horizon. The UK Government’s Pension Schemes Bill proposes amendments that carry significant risk for those depending on this secure, inflation-protected income during retirement. While officials dress it up as freeing “trapped capital” for growth, what it amounts to for many pension holders is the legalisation of employer access to pension surpluses at your expense. The proposed legislation allows companies to reclaim pension scheme surpluses that had previously been safeguarded by trust deeds and legislative boundaries.… Read more: DB Pensions 2025-27: Who’s most at risk from new bill?

How the UK is short‑changing its own pensioners abroad If you’re reading this, you dont need to imagine working your whole life in the UK, paying your obligatory National Insurance and retiring with the promise of a state pension that’s meant to support you in retirement. Now consider that pension shrinking year by year because you chose to live somewhere sunny, peaceful, or affordable. A state pension that doesn’t increase annually, as it does in the UK, EU, and USA, means you’ve lost what you were promised, even when obligated to pay National Insurance all your working life. That’s exactly… Read more: Frozen State Pensions

Reflections on Britain, Aging, and Exile I was born and raised under the constant drone of British Army helicopters in Belfast, seeing young British men and women give their lives to protect a UK city divided against itself. Despite being coined ‘the Dirty War‘, most of those serving did so for their country, for the safety of their countrymen, and simply because it was their job. It’s from then I first learned what ‘British values’ meant: resilience, duty and service. So it’s painful—shameful, even—to see how some UK politicians, pursuing their own their self-interest, have abandoned the same people I… Read more: The Forgotten Generation