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11K Millionaires Fled the UK: Starmer’s New £5M Plan · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: 11,000 millionaires fled Britain, and 16,500 more are projected to follow.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the same government that taxed them out is scrambling to draw them back with a curiosity-structured golden visa.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In this video, you'll learn about the disastrous abolition of the UK's non-dom tax regime, its fallout, and Keir Starmer's£5 million bet to stem the bleeding.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you're planning your own exit, stay until the end.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have more info for you.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, first, to understand what's happened and happening in the United Kingdom, you have to start with one of the world's oldest and arguably most successful special tax regimes.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Over two centuries, Britain ran one of the world's most lucrative tax preferences.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was called the non-domicile regime or non-dom status, dating back to 1799 and originally designed to protect colonial investors.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Under non-Dom rules, wealthy foreigners living in the UK could legally avoid paying British tax on their overseas income and capital gains for up to 15 years.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was one critical reason London became a magnet for global wealth.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Nondom had been contributing roughly£8.5 billion a year to UK tax receipts.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: In March 2024, however, the previous Conservative government under Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced the regime would end, and it officially took effect in April 2025.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Politicians on both sides of the aisle supported the move as it was sold as a fairness measure.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The government projected an additional£2.7 billion in annual revenue by 2028.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: But has that happened?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: What the abolition actually did was send a signal to globally mobile wealth that Britain was no longer competitive, and the UK is still feeling the fallout two years later.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nearly 11,000 millionaires left the United Kingdom in 2024 alone.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The same data projected an additional 16,500 departures by the end of 2025.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Though the jury is still out on how many wealthy people left.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's wealth flights on a scale Britain has not seen in peacetime.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: These were not paper millionaires.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Norwegian shipping magnate John Frederickson left.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Egyptian billionaire Nasef Sawyeris cut his ties with Britain.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Swiss FinTech founder Guillaume Pusas reduced his exposure.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even Business Secretary Peter Kyle has publicly admitted that higher levies drove some of the ultra-rich out.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And to make it worse, while Britain was processing the Exodus, rival jurisdictions were rolling out the welcome mat.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: The UAE offers zero personal income tax and has received a huge influx of British residents.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Italy has been aggressively courting wealthy expatriates with a€300,000 flat tax on global income.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Turkey expanded its residency and citizenship programs, and President Erdogan is proposing a tax exemption on foreign income for 20 years.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of these jurisdictions is actively recruiting the same investors and entrepreneurs Britain is driving out.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: In return, the investor receives three years of residency and a direct path to permanent settlement, also known as indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Qualifying investments must flow into what the document describes as priority sectors, aka fast-growing UK businesses across science, tech, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Property is explicitly excluded.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is all deliberate.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: The previous version of this visa, called Tier 1 Investor, was shut down in February 2022 after it was claimed to be used as a parking lot for Russian capital flowing into London real estate.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: The new program is trying to draw a hard line between productive investment and speculation.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: For comparison, across the European Golden Visa landscape, Portugal's Golden Visa starts at 500,000 euros for fund investments.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Greece ranges from€250,000 to€800,000.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even the US EB5 sits at just over 1 million US dollars.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So at 5 million pounds, Britain's proposal is roughly 10 times its competitors.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Programs like this one, opaque, relationship driven, with rules being drafted behind closed doors, are exactly the kind of thing we track every day inside IMI Sovereigns, our private community for investors and entrepreneurs building their diversified resilient portfolios.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Membership includes an active daily chat where members trade Intel jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Off the record, Sovereign signals meetings with our team who have ears on the ground in more than 125 jurisdictions.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the nice discount below and sign up as a founding member today.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not a standard golden visa any investor can apply for.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The£5 million visa will be invitation only and won't be an open application.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: That structure is unlike any other golden visa currently on the market.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The closest comparable is Granada's Citizenship by Investment Route, which is a discretionary side door for ultra-vetted and connected candidates.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The logic is reputational.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: The government claims the old Tier 1 investor visa was a disaster on this front as it admitted suspicious capital.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Office for Investment is trying to avoid a repeat, and pre-selection lets the government control who walks through the door before anyone applies.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: For investors, this is new.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Most golden visas reward those who can clear an objective bar and check the boxes.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Send the capital, pass due diligence, receive residency.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: An invite-only program.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, rewards, relationships, sector alignment, and access.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It looks more like an institutional capital raise than a visa application.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger issue facing the proposal is whether it survives at all.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Labor just took heavy losses in local elections, and Starmer's premiership is under serious pressure.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Members of his own party have already publicly challenged a separate proposal to fast-track residency for high earners.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the November 2025 plan that would offer three-year settlement to visa holders earning above£125,000 a year.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: If Labour MPs are rejecting accelerated paths for£125,000 earners, the politics around a£5 million visa get even more difficult to overcome.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Parliamentary Undersecretary for Migration and Citizenship, Mike Tapp, is involved in the broader effort.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Chancellor Rachel Reeves' November budget hinted at a separate tax offer for high talent individuals, though almost no detail has been released.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: A government spokesperson confirmed only that the Global Talent Task Force is keeping all options under review.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Translation, it's a proposal.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Even if Starmer survives, even if the visa launches as designed, the market it would launch into has shifted.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: The 11,000 millionaires who left in 2024 are already settled abroad.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: They've moved their families, their assets, their school enrollments to other European countries, to Dubai, or even further.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Reversing those decisions for a£5 million entry visa with three years to settlement and an invite-only gate is a tall ask.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: One last data point worth knowing.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Starmer's proposal is essentially the old accelerated tier rebranded as the entry point, with the lower thresholds removed.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's enough to compete with the UAE, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, and others is the open question.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Several wealth advisors we've spoken with already think the answer is no.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the tens of thousands of millionaires who fled Britain haven't disappeared.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: They picked specific destinations.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: We made a video covering exactly that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: The tax haven battle between the UAE, Singapore, Switzerland, and Panama for the post-non-DOM wealth wave.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Watch that video on your screen next.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell to stay current as Starmer's Plan develops and the rest of the world moves on.