Poles, who migrated to Great Britain by hundreds of thousands, have recently returned to their homeland in search of better opportunities. – reports Matthew Campbell in “The Sunday Times”

The author reminds that this month it will be 20 years since Poland signed the Treaty of Accession on April 16, 2003, as a result of which it entered the European Union a year later, and the largest-ever migration wave from Poland to Great Britain started.

„At that time, one in five people in Poland was unemployed, desperate for work and grateful when Tony Blair opened the borders to them, to fuel a booming economy. The government expected up to 13,000 people a year from Poland and nine other new EU members. Soon, many times that number were arriving from Poland alone. Polish shops sprang up on the high streets, Polish churches and clubs proliferated and the term “Polish plumber” became shorthand for cheap immigrant labour. Since 2004, though, Poles have gone on to do a lot more than mend pipes.” 

The Office of National Statistics estimates that between 2016 and 2020, the number of Poles in the U.K. dropped from 911,000 to 691,000.

According to immigration experts, the actual figure of Poles living in the UK at the time of Brexit exceeded one million.

The highest number of applications for “settled” or „pre-settled status”, came from Poles. And as many of them were approved to stay they „may not have felt “settled” and left anyway.”

Lady Carnarvon used to be surrounded by the Polish help in her and her husband’s 17th-century Hampshire mansion, building known from the „Downton Abbey” TV series and films.
„We’ve lost our seated afternoon tea business (…) Young Europeans who used to serve the tea at the stately home have stopped applying for jobs in the UK.” – she says with a rueful smile.

The outcome of the 2016 referendum still haunts her – „I spent a lot of time going around hugging Europeans, saying, ‘I’m so sorry.’ I felt so sad. They felt unwelcome.”

As Rafal Cekiera, a Polish sociologist at the University of Silesia, says – „Brexit alone does not explain the outflow, though, even if the fears and inconveniences associated with it provided the excuse for some to make the decision and leave”. 

The pandemic also played an important role, prompting family-oriented Poles to return home to their relatives rather than endure the separation imposed by travel restrictions. However, for many others, the most significant reason for leaving was the transformation of Poland’s economy which has grown at an average rate of approximately 4 per cent annually since 2004, and real income has tripled, making it Europe’s land of opportunity, surpassing Britain.

The Labour leader Keir Starmer, told the House of Commons in February that „the average family in Britain will be poorer than the average family in Poland by 2030”.

Pawel Bukowski, a Polish lecturer in economics at University College London, who moved to the UK in 2016 asserts that the UK is no longer as appealing to potential immigrants as it once was and „Poland is rapidly converging with the EU”.

Matthew Campell recalls to his visit in Poland’s capital and the impression it made on him – „Warsaw bears little resemblance to the city I last visited a decade ago. The drab, Soviet-era wedding cake-shaped building — the Palace of Culture and Science — is still there, a remnant of the communist past. But the skyline bristles with a multitude of other soaring structures, a panorama of modernist steel and glass that could be mistaken for London.”

The author also points out a conversation with Arkady Rzegocki, the former ambassador to the UK, that when he arrived in London in 2016 his first job was to try to assuage the fears of the Polish community in an atmosphere of rising xenophobia and an uptick in hate crimes. „We had to do work on this” – he says, explaining that Polish people were saying they don’t feel welcome here.

Now, seven year later he believes that the relationship has much improved. “We used to know more about British literature, history and politics than the other way round. Today, British people have started coming to Poland on holiday”. 

“The Sunday Times” reports that living standards in Poland are improving, while in Britain, they are decreasing. The cost of living is rising, same as crime rates of knife attacks. Waiting times for the NHS are growing longer, and Poles are no longer willing to endure the expensive and substandard housing in London.

Lukasz Marek Marc, an economist at the World Bank who moved to the UK in 2015, was living in bedsit with a shared lavatory which cost him £650 a month, describing it as primitve compared with Polish standards.

In 2022, Marc got a job offer in Warsaw and relocated. „It was a great move. This is a better city to live in than London.” – he says.

Author: Patrycja Bodzek-Kurzyńska

Photo: Pixabay