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Note: This post is an Op-Ed and shares the author's personal views.
Hear me out...I feel kinda weird about Ellen DeGeneres hyping up England while confirming that she moved there because of the presidency of Donald Trump.
Shortly after the 2024 election, it was reported that Ellen and wife Portia de Rossi had moved to the Cotswolds, a rural area in England. It's worth noting that this was after her final standup tour and the end of her daytime show, following allegations of a toxic work environment.
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Initially, Ellen said that she and Portia bought the house to live in part-time. "We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, 'He got in,'" she said. "And we're like, 'We're staying here.'"
"It's absolutely beautiful," she continued. "We're just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture — everything you see is charming and it's just a simpler way of life."
"It's clean. Everything here is just better — the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here," she added. "We moved here in November, which was not the ideal time, but I saw snow for the first time in my life. We love it here. Portia flew her horses here, and I have chickens, and we had sheep for about two weeks."
Elsewhere, Ellen specifically mentioned LGBTQ+ rights in the US. "The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage," she said. "They're trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it. Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we're going to get married here."
I really don't want to make mountains out of molehills here: I'm sure Ellen is having a lovely time in England. But, as a Brit, I think some liberal Americans can be prone to adopting rose-colored glasses when it comes to issues in other parts of the world, when in reality the rise of far-right bigotry is very much a global problem. I just want to throw it out there, for anyone reading this, that the UK Ellen is describing is more complex than that.
For one, it's worth noting that the UK is currently having its own issues with upholding LGBTQ+ rights. It's currently ranked as the second-worst Western European country for LGBTQ+ rights, 22nd overall in Europe (just below Estonia), by ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map.
Indeed, in terms of legal gender recognition, ILGA-Europe puts the UK as one of the worst countries in Europe. The main reason for this is because, in April, the UK Supreme Court essentially ruled that trans women aren't legally women.
It's also worth considering that anti-immigration sentiment is also on the rise in the UK. Literally in this week, anti-immigrant protests in one part of England became violent — as the BBC notes, "Demonstrators on Sunday chanted 'send them home' and 'save our kids,' as projectiles were thrown towards police vans blocking the entrance to the hotel." Last August, riots happened across the country spouting anti-immigrant rhetoric.
In May, the government published an immigration white paper, which proposes a number of increased cuts on immigration, such as reducing positions available for Skilled Worker jobs and doubling the qualifying period for permanent residence. As the proposals were unveiled, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers" without stricter immigration. He was subsequently accused of evoking Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood” speech, which warned against white people finding "themselves made strangers in their own country" (Starmer later apologized for the remarks and denied any intention of similarity with Powell).
What I think is likely more accurate is "rich white cis lady finds life is better somewhere else," which, yes. Good on her for not being as inundated with news about the orange man! You can read more about Ellen's words here.
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