Why some British expats in Dubai insist it’s business as usual – despite Iran war

It is not always seen as a positive when the ruling family of a dictatorship makes a public show of mingling among the people.

On Monday, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the royal who is both president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, joined Dubai’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, for a stroll around Dubai’s mall, before settling down alongside awkward looking officials on the banquette-style seating at one of its most visible cafes.

The royal walkabout at a Dubai mall on Monday. Photograph: Dubai Media Office

“The French kings always ate in public. I kinda like this,” one observer noted on social media.

It didn’t work out for the Bourbons.

At least three people, expat workers from Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, have been killed and up to 68 injured as a result of the falling debris from intercepted Iranian airstrikes directed at the Gulf states since Saturday.

A dramatic explosion at the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai offered a spectacle to match the headlines.

Experiencing both the shock of the moment and the ensuing public relations effort from the top to sustain confidence, have been an estimated 250,000 British nationals – a diverse community of fintech entrepreneurs, the super-rich, beauty salon workers, retirees and early-career professionals, many of whom have been attracted by the UAE’s 0% rate of income tax and all-year sun.

Firefighters and rescue workers inspect the site of an explosion on Saturday at the Fairmont hotel in Dubai. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP

For one British expat, only a few months into his life in Dubai working in the financial services industry, Saturday morning had brought a double shock to the system.

After hearing the boom of the impacts, he shared a video from the BBC with colleagues, only to be told to delete it.

The UAE had issued a warning that sharing unverified content was an imprisonable offence. The internet also appeared to briefly go down.

“I can imagine some might find that oppressive,” he said. “I think some Brits might have been reaching for the map for the first time to see exactly where they were living”.

Could this be the beginning of the end for the British expansion in the UAE, where the rulers have always put safety as one of its chief draws?

While there has been sympathy expressed back in the UK to the cause of those caught up in Donald Trump’s war on Iran, a dash of schadenfreude back home has been evident.

One Daily Mail headline containing teary testimony from socialite Petra Ecclestone, read: “‘I’ve never been hit by an Iranian missile on my way to Asda’: Internet gloats at terrified Dubai influencers after Iranian drone blitz on expat haven.”

In the House of Commons, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, with reference to “tax exiles” such as Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist and partner of Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, said the price of British protection for those Britons living in the UAE should be paying their taxes “to support our armed forces, just like the rest of us do.”

Dubai ‘tax exile’ Isabel Oakeshott. Photograph: TalkTV

Another Daily Mail headline bore the headline: “End of the Dubai dream.”

Trapped during a period in which the airspace above the UAE was closed, some did rush to the Oman border to fly out from there. More than 100,000 British nationals have registered their presence in the Gulf region with the Foreign Office – on their advice.

The private schools with Hogwarts-style vibes, including the Repton Dubai and the Dubai International Academy, have been closed until further notice. Many British nationals are working from home on the advice of the authorities.

This is only, though, part of the picture, according to Justin Harper, a former Daily Mail journalist who is currently editor of CEO Middle East, a business news website.

He was celebrating his birthday by taking his family on a road trip towards the Iranian border from their Dubai home when the missiles came but he said he soon felt assured that the authorities had the situation in control.

The private Repton Dubai school has been closed until further notice. Photograph: Publicity Image

“I don’t want to sound blase but it’s business as usual for me,” said Harper who returned to work on Monday. “While my kids are still home-schooled for the next couple of days, it does feel we’re getting back to normal already.”

He added: “You can pick and choose who you listen to, whether it’s celebrities, influencers, or people being overly dramatic. There’s a lot of envy about the Dubai lifestyle and people are so quick to knock it down, but it’s open to anyone.

“I think in terms of long-term implications we will quickly weather the storm. Having spoken to colleagues and a lot of Brits who’ve been here for 20 years-plus, they have lived through many scares and tensions and you just kind of ride it out, because they tend to be very short term … I think the smart money is on that nothing materially will change.”

A host of big-name retail franchises have followed the Britons to UAE, including those owned by the celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal and Gary Rhodes. Can they continue to flourish?

Natasha Hatherall, who has lived in Dubai for 16 years and runs a large marketing agency that caters to the retail industry among others, said she had signed a business contract just that day.

“I own quite a lot of the big community [chat] groups here as well so I consider that I’m really tuned into the sentiment and what’s going on. And I think everyone is saying: ‘I feel safer here than I feel elsewhere’. We are not getting on a plane to go anywhere.”

Katharine Budd, a fintech entrepreneur who spreads her time between Dubai and Austria, said that it was also not only the British who have come to the UAE in large numbers in recent years.

“All the big companies – MasterCard, Visa – all the big law firms just relocated all of their staff from Russia and Ukraine at the start of the war,” she said. “Initially it was all the people in wealthy jobs, but now you’ve got girls in the nail salon. You know, every level. The [road] signs are in Russian, if you go to the cinema, Russian movies are showing. I don’t think Dubai is going to lose. I don’t think those Russians and Ukrainians are going back.”

A public plaza in downtown Dubai. Photograph: Fatima Shbair/AP

Budd added that the release of a little demand in the UAE property market might be a good thing. “How many British people have previously lived in Dubai?” she said. “There’s a big pool of people who are sort of thinking: ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t have left. Life in the UK is not so great now, and you know, now it’s getting bit cheaper to live in UAE’. I think this might be my time to go back’”.

Flights out of Dubai have restarted. Azad Zangana from Oxford Economics said he would expect it to take between a year and two for the tourism industry to recover.

A Disneyland theme park is due to open in Abu Dhabi between 2030 and 2033. But Zangana said there was confidence in the UAE that Iran would seek a truce soon, minimising the impact on the wider economy. “And the oil isn’t going anywhere any time soon.”