Tycoon who donated £1m to Brexit campaigns considers moving to Australia for good
One of Britain’s richest men, who donated £1 million to Brexit campaigns, said he was considering moving to Australia permanently after making a damning assessment that Britain was “in chaos”.
Lord Edmiston was ranked 187th on the Sunday Times Rich list this year, with an estimated fortune of £855 million, after making his fortune through his IM Group empire, which started by importing cars and later expanded into property and finance.
He became a Conservative life peer in 2011 and retired from the House of Lords four years later to focus on the evangelical charity Christian Vision, whose donations have made him one of the UK’s largest charitable donors.
The devout Christian also donated £1 million to pro-Brexit campaigns; This included £850,000 donated to Vote Leave through his company before the 2016 EU referendum.
But with his son Andrew playing a bigger role in running the West Midlands-based business, Lord Edmiston said: Independent He is spending more time outside the UK, having moved to Portugal in semi-retirement in 2016 and built a property in Australia.
He has now revealed that he and his wife, Lady Edmiston, are considering going one step further by applying for permanent residence in Australia. He attributed this to family reasons and a warmer climate, but also sparked criticism of the NHS and the country’s tax system.
Lord Edmiston, who said he would still return to England, said: “It’s not a final decision but my brother lives there [Australia]My sister lives there and one of my daughters lives there… and I have a help center there. A place where we built ourselves a beautiful home. “So we are basically temporary residents and at some point we will probably become permanent residents.”
Asked why he would make the move, Lord Edmiston said he liked the mood and praised the country’s health service, which operates on a hybrid model where more than half the population receives healthcare. have private health insurance.
He said: “As you get older healthcare becomes very important and healthcare in Australia is excellent.”
Speaking earlier, Lord Edmiston said he could make a doctor’s appointment “this way” in Australia, followed by a blood test and hospital appointment in less than a month. In March the NHS waiting list for hospital treatment was 6.25 million patients.
He said: “Why can’t we? [UK] do this? Because there are sacred cows there, we cannot touch them. If things stay like this forever… we won’t be able to cope and we won’t be able to cope.
“A lot of people waiting six months to go to the hospital said how much? Or we don’t have preventive medicine here, we have medicine, when you have a problem we take care of it and maybe we will take care of it in three months, maybe it’s too late.”
“I think we need to step back, because if anyone comes along and says they’re going to mess with the NHS, all hell is going to break loose. But I think the public are starting to see that it’s not working, it’s broken.”
Lord Edmiston also criticized the tax system in England. IM Group paid almost £14.5 million in tax on its £56 million profit in 2024. latest accounts Published at Companies House.
After saying he had “multiple reasons” for considering moving to Australia, he said: “The tax system here… If I think about it, even my job, it seems like there’s a group of people who constantly want to put obstacles in your way.”
He added: “If you win they tax you heavily and you don’t keep most of it. If you lose you lose and the whole environment has been very difficult for a few years.”
He has previously expressed concern about speculation in the upcoming Autumn budget and the November date of the announcement, saying it was delaying his business decisions.
“Things run safely,” he said. “If you know something is coming on the road but you don’t know exactly what it is, you’re not going to keep your foot on the gas pedal, right? You’re going to hit the brakes and wait to see if the train comes.”
After also talking about the impact of electric cars and the need for office-based working, he said: “There are 101 things I think we can do but I think we are in full panic mode right now where we think the only solution is a tax… what does this mean for consumers?” [is] “They won’t buy as much, so it will be bad for the industry.”
For most people, Nigel Farage’s UK Reform Party is the answer, according to polls.
Asked if he would consider changing his allegiance, he said: “I don’t really want to get into the political element because I tend to be quite loyal but I have to admit that we [Conservatives] We didn’t do a good job last time and personally I don’t think we deserved to win and we have a bad habit of stabbing ourselves in the back.
“Having said that, I also think about what’s going on in the Labor Party… I think the country is in chaos.”
