leave (one) (out) in the cold

To ignore or exclude someone from a group, activity, benefit, etc. You have to make sure you stand out in a company, or they might leave you in the cold when it comes time to hand out promotions. Voters in this region have been left completely out in the cold since this whole debate began.

COMMON If you leave a person or organization out in the cold, you ignore them or do not include them. They expressed concern that developing countries might be left out in the cold in current world trade talks. While most company pension schemes pay out a pension to a surviving widow or widower, an unmarried partner is generally left out in the cold.

To exclude. This term, evoking the image of a person who is refused admittance to a house and must remain outside in cold weather, presumably began by meaning just that, in the late nineteenth century. It soon was transferred to mean exclusion not only from shelter but from a social group, information, or the like. It had long been a cliché by the time John le Carré entitled his espionage novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), in which the main character returns from the German Democratic Republic (Communist East Germany)—figuratively out in the cold— to the West.