LONDON — The United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union seems to have given heart to those in the country who hold anti-immigrant views and offered them a green light to get nasty. In particular, those who voted to leave are increasingly expressing impatience that European immigrants are still here — especially the Poles, who leapfrogged over Indians in the official migration figures last month to become the country’s largest immigrant group — even though Brexit is at best two years away.
The frustration with the government is becoming increasingly urgent. Leavers are demanding, so far at the local council level, that life should be made tougher for Poles, so that they leave of their own free will. That’s ugly and could do lasting damage to what had seemed to be a solid relationship between the two countries.
In the last 10 days, Poles in the U.K. have been subjected to a number of vicious attacks, such as the murder in Harlow of factory worker Arkadiusz Jóźwik, who was targeted by local teenagers for speaking Polish on the street. It was not an isolated event: Two more Poles were badly beaten in the same town just hours after a memorial service was held for Jóźwik. The Polish Embassy in London has dealt with almost 20 hate crimes since the Brexit vote.
Never have Poles felt as uncertain about their future in the U.K. The new British government needs to guarantee the safety of Poles living in the country. It must also engage the public, including Poles and other migrants, through a national conversation on immigration — one that sets the record straight and creates a narrative based on hard facts and common sense.
Some 92 percent of Poles in the U.K. are in employment or further education — the highest rate among all ethnic groups in Britain.
I’ve been listening to the positive migrant narrative for more than a decade. As a student prone to procrastination, I spent a lot of time at my local deli in North London which, like most cafés in the months after Warsaw’s 2004 accession to the EU, was packed with Polish waitresses.
Their English was still shaky, but we shared a common language — I am the son of a Polish mother and British father — and a zest for anecdotes and stories. In return for what I hope will be a lifelong supply of free chicken soup and kreplach, I helped pen their university applications.
Putting their life stories down on paper and seeing their fierce ambition and passion helped me embrace my Polish roots and put me in good stead for my role as a speechwriter for Polish politicians in Brussels and Warsaw.
It also offered me a window into how valuable immigrants can be in our country. Ten years on, one of the waitresses is a senior executive at Sky News, two are successful online entrepreneurs, and another works as a corporate headhunter. Two others have moved back to Poland to set up businesses of their own.
The British political class makes the mistake of painting this huge community with a single brush. More than half of all Poles in Britain work low-wage jobs that Brits simply don’t want to do: laying bricks, nannying kids, serving lattes, watering carnations. The rest are highly qualified and highly skilled, and many have worked their way up from menial jobs to lucrative positions.
Some 92 percent of Poles in the U.K. are in employment or further education — the highest rate among all ethnic groups in Britain. They’re mobile, they’re flexible and they think on their feet. How can these people not be an asset to Britain?
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The British tabloid press and populist politicians typically vilify Poles as swan-eating savages who have swooped in to undercut the prices of local workers while overcrowding nurseries and NHS hospital wards. Their message is clear: Poles are a big strain on public finances. But that’s not the way it is. EU workers in the U.K. contribute £2 billion in taxes a year. They bring in much more than they take out.
The idea that immigrants crowd native Britons out of the job market is built on the false idea that there is a fixed number of jobs in the economy. When women started to enter the British labor force in large numbers, they didn’t “steal” jobs from men. Likewise Polish workers are simply pushing up or sustaining growth.
In reality, migrants have expanded the economy. Poles in the U.K. have opened more than 22,000 businesses and have created new employment opportunities.
Not a single government official has spoken out to reassure them, or the two million-plus other EU nationals, about their future in Britain.
Poles and other EU migrants will help support public finances as British society ages; the number of pensioners in the country is expected to double between 2000 and 2050, and the number of people older than 85 is thought to be on course to more than quadruple in the same period. Give Poles the boot, and Britain might well see an increase in the state pension age or national insurance contributions; the country needs their young blood.
Prime Minister Theresa May has appointed a Labour Brexiteer, German-born Gisela Stuart, to banish the idea that Britain is somehow holding Poles and other EU migrants as hostages for the forthcoming negotiations. But that has not reassured anyone.
“We want more certainty about our future,” a junior doctor from Gdańsk told me. “Will we be able to stay in the U.K.? Will we need visas and work permits? Will my family be able to visit?” The doctor was hoping to get a mortgage to get a place in London. Now the bank’s not sure, the hospital isn’t sure, and she may just have to move back. Mission accomplished for the Brexiteers — but at what cost? And to whose benefit?
Two months after Great Britain voted to leave the European Union, Poles are living in limbo. They are right to be worried. Not a single government official has spoken out to reassure them, or the two million-plus other EU nationals, about their future in Britain.
The first step towards creating a new consensus is to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the U.K. Britain’s new government needs to understand that pulling up the drawbridge only works as a strategy if you want to stop a hostile army entering your castle. But Poles are not the enemy of the British. It is time that Downing Street understood and acted on this.
Philip Boyes was a speechwriter for Jerzy Buzek, former president of the European Parliament.