My grandfather was born in Manchester in 1912. His parents had only recently arrived from Lithuania, and they soon moved on: after losing two children to scarlet fever in filthy industrial Manchester, they left for much healthier Rhodesia.
Thanks to my grandfather’s birthplace, I was born British, though admittedly not very British. “Birth in the district of West Mengo in the Republic of Uganda”, records my birth certificate, signed by a local official named Louis Mugonoki Kinkuheire Keitirima. We soon moved on, too. I grew up everywhere, and my children were born in Paris. Now Britain is refusing them citizenship. It seems my grandfather’s 15 minutes in Manchester weren’t sufficient to confer Britishness on generations of descendants.
So when it comes to emigration, I’m biased. We Kupers are serial migrants. However, it is objective fact that perhaps a third of young people in western countries should emigrate tomorrow. Now that emigration has become a cinch, it’s a no-brainer. Just go already.