this is really proper dire. i'm not sure what to suggest either except what buru said and maybe aiming for a change of supervisor, if that is possible somehow in those circumstances. the problem with complaints is of course the danger that they will close ranks and will make it look like it's your fault and you're just a bad student, you're not good enough. that's something you psychologically have to prepare for, that they will go through your work and find all your faults and exaggerate them.
but what actually happened is that you just didn't get the right kind of support which is why you and your work suffered. this has nothing to do with this sneering 'but the stupid phd student wants that we hold their hands all the time' kind of view. you're entitled to support, you didn't get it, you need to prove it somehow that you didn't get it and make that complaint. maybe the people who offered the scholarship can help as well? after all they must have seen something in you otherwise you wouldn't have gotten the funding. no denying it's tough and might be getting nasty, so meanwhile just try to work on your thesis every day, every day a tiny little bit. it might distract you also from all the hassle.
people always say, don't make a complaint, think of the reference, but fuck that, supervisors get away with so much. they're scared of complaints bc for instance at my uni two complaints mean they are out, so the complaint threat should get them moving to make things better. but, as said above, they might lash out in some indirect way and discredit your work and try to cover up as much as possible. i was in a similar situation (tho no downgrading danger, just plain change of supervisor) where they secretly knew my former supervisor was dodgy, but didn't openly admit it. that may happen too. that they know it but cover up. good luck.

there are probably guidelines on how much supervision you can expect, for most universities it's one supervision per month etc. look for those guidelines and check whether you got all the support you ought to have gotten. if you didn't get the support, make a list of what you didn't get and present it to the graduate school coordinator. finally if it makes you feel really rotten, counseling via uni or gp, this might enable you to apply for extenuating circumstances and buy you some more time.
also worth going to the student's guild for further support. they might be able to advise what to do in such situations...
good luck....

it sounds like you're in a very difficult position, having to juggle the demands of work and a phd. it's hard enough having a job in the 'outside' world, but one in the lab while doing a phd can be a very toxic combination when the environment is populated by the wrong people. in a practical sense there might be ways to 'prove' you did all the work required and technically that should shut them up. maybe maybe the union might help. maybe they're envious of your success. it's not clear whether your boss is supportive, sounds like he is. maybe he can do something to shut them up. it sounds like he warned you which is a good thing.

you remind me of myself. once too i was the promising phd student, very much ahead of the curve in my first year, then it all started to crumble because of my unsupportive supervisor, long story, and because of those experiences i decided academia isn't for me and i will leave the premises after submission. i don't regard this as a bad decision.

unfortunately there is lots of bad behaviour around and it's very hard to navigate and you may get the short end even if you have done nothing wrong and followed all the right procedures. good luck with all.

yeah what tree of life said.
i am in the humanities and the majority of folks at my uni (a not awful russell group) need the full 4 years and an extension. no one is batting an eyelid. i know only two people who didn't need an extension and no-one managed to do it in the three years, all needed the full writing up year. i will submit after 4 years and a health-related extension of 3 months.
i have also been told by an academic that some institutions prefer it if people spend more time on their phd as they associate this with better quality. at another department people get told to slow down, that goes especially for the better students. to someone not so good they say: 'ok get it out of the way and be gone' and someone better gets encouraged to spend more time on refining stuff. someone from my department almost took 5 years over it and is on her third postdoc. she had very nice postdocs. so i wouldn't worry, just keep an eye on the regulations.

not in your field, but to say some general things and to explain the sarcasm: it *is* really dire. also, sarcasm = poor working climate prevalent in academia, you might as well get used to it. search for 'mental health' in this forum and see whether you like what you read. ask yourself whether you want to put yourself through this.
you can likely expect all the unpredictability and worry about instability after the phd for a number of years due to the wonderful short term contracts. also, nepotism is key.
maybe you're better off doing a phd in other countries: netherlands, switzerland, sweden germany, belgium.

you might also consider this:

'The German research base is characterised by non-teaching institutions and looks complicated, but also relatively well-funded, when compared to the UK’s. Its structure also leads to underperformance in the global league tables, making German research appear less good than it really is. For example, if the Max Planck Society were included in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University league table, they could displace Cambridge as the top placed European university and knock Oxford out of the top ten. However, there appears to be some convergence between how research is undertaken in the UK and Germany.'

from here:
the comment underneath the article is well worth reading too as it explains some differences between the english and the german system.

as a german you'll notice most of the accommodation will be not the quality you're used to. you might want to check for double glazing, damp and somesuch. avoid sash windows. some britishers think it's totally normal to have 15 degrees inside your house during winter. prepare to be ripped off one or other way. dorms, while not super cheap, might provide more longterm tenancy security than private places where they can raise the rents fairly arbitrary... english renters do not have the same legal protection and rights as in germany. it's not easy and it's good to ask around, for instance here and get some help from the locals.

really sorry to hear...

i would give up on the r&r paper. that is 'for now'. maybe to go back at it at some other time.
you still have stuff in the pipeline and it's good to just continue working on things, fire away, something will stick in the end. aim low, conference publications, sure they might not be worth as much as a journal, but it's still something to show for, especially in the earlier stages of a career. employ nepotism, if you can.
publishing is difficult, there can be a lot of dodgy stuff going on during reviewprocesses you don't know about, there's politics, and some people might not have a clue what they're reviewing, all kinds of things. in the best of cases you get an ok reviewer knowing what you're talking about and giving you constructive feedback. it shouldn't be like that, but it often is, unfortunately.

don't ever let the rejections define your worth. it's not about you.

i myself had mixed experiences, some stuff accepted, others rejected and i've been told to let the rejected stuff go and go back to the ideas at a later stage and maybe incorporate them in some other paper. it's also good to let it go for psychological reasons, much more frustrating to always go over the same rejected paper than to just say: ok that's it, i try something else.

good luck.

me, humanities (not history). you're not expected to do any work for your supervisor. science is often different that the supervisors design their phds for them so it tends to be far less independent than what we do and they have far less freedom.

i had to transcribe some old documents for mine at some point and got paid for it. it wasn't a crazy amount, a few hours every day for a month, and it was nice extra money. so if they're nice they give you odd little jobs here and there. since this is britain, nepotism is key, however.
you might want to watch out when they ask you to do work like this: don't do this kind of stuff for free. you get paid a pittance for teaching as well, while eds is right, it's cheap labour for the institution, it's not stupid to do some teaching. just do it once or twice so you can tick that cv box. don't teach tons. they will also send you to a teaching intro course. not stupid to do this either, even if it is probably boring.
then there might be a chance to organize a conference, depending on everyone's experience with this kind of thing this can be a lot of work or a piece of cake. the university might or might not pay for this kind of work/assistance. on the continent i got paid, in the uk i didn't. you might want to insist to be given a slot at the conference so you have a chance to present something.
there might be little things like being present at open days and such.
if the supervisor is editing some volume it might be worth looking over their shoulder while they're at it. they could give you some work related to that. ask for money if it's a lot. ask being mentioned in the book as co-editor if you're really doing a huge amount.

if your offer isn't from oxbridge i probably would consider taking the home offer. the uk isn't the greatest country for doing a phd and i regret that i didn't take the other option in another country (i am at a russell group uni). reasons being supervision isn't always great, supervisors cannot be held accountable, or only with great difficulties, england is a *very* classridden society, nepotism is key and oh, you got problems getting a national insurance number, try getting a bank account...

i know of someone (in the humanities) with one (not great) publication and a few in the pipeline who got a postdoc at not a lowly uni. however, that person had an influential supervisor. since your supervisors are happy about your proposal and you have stuff in the pipeline you should definitely give it a shot.

8556732, you're right to go for a very long suspension to sort yourself out, that's certainly a good thing to give yourself plenty of time. and if you don't do it you might end up like me and you'd have to attach extra time towards the end, so it sounds like you made the right decision.

the others made some very valid points.

mine is a perspective from someone who didn't take a break. it's been suggested to me but i didn't do it because i wanted to get the phd out of the way (it was fairly late in the phd). but my health didn't improve and at the end of the day i had to apply for an extension (was granted) on medical grounds and i have the same delay as if i had taken a suspension. i am not sure what is better, for the extension allows me a less stressful, healthier pace of work. and i am not sure a suspension would have been able to help with recovery as i always felt the pressure of the phd anyway.... however, if it had happened earlier in the phd a suspension would probably have been better....

all the best to everyone.

good luck with that. if it helps, i got mine within a couple of weeks, but that was a few years ago, they can be fast sometimes... hope your supervisor can get it sorted...

good luck. if i were you i would only do a course or two of teaching so you can put it on the cv - you can't plan on making a living on teaching alone - and spend the rest on your field research to get that dissertation out of the way and enjoy that beautiful surrounding you're in.

mine was £30ph before the taxman, after taxman £22. but yeah like eds said, that kind of region. £15 - 30. they only pay the very hour you teach. no extra cash for preparations or grading, or only if you're very lucky. so you might end up with something like £200-400 for teaching one course one semester. they might not even be able to tell you whether you get the teaching a week before the semester starts. not because they want to make your life horrible but because they themselves might not know, even at that late a date, whether they get the money for the teaching. also, teaching tends to be allocated to certain people for opaque nepotist reasons. by all means ask, but as you're up north there might not be many locations to teach... plusside: small classes, so less grading.
again, sorry that it's not a cheerful picture.