How Brexit might impact Poles and the Polish economy

Brexit - the UK's departure from the EU - would not necessarily lead to a significant drop in the number of Polish migrants going to work in Britain.

That according to Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski. But many Poles fear complications and upheaval if Britain votes to leave the EU on June 23rd.

“There’s certainly a lot of worry and uncertainty about what the future for EU migrants would look like following a Brexit vote,” says Jakub Krupa, who heads PolesInUK, the UK’s largest Poland-oriented website.

Poles are the second-largest overseas-born community in the UK after residents born in India and the Polish language is the second most spoken language in England and the third most spoken language in the UK after English and Welsh. About 1 per cent of Britain’s population speaks Polish.

According to the most recent official figures, there are now 3,300,000 EU nationals living in Britain – up by 2,000,000 since 2003 – and those supporting ‚Brexit’ believe the UK’s departure would help reduce this.

„It’s not necessarily about having to leave,” Krupa say. „It’s more or less clear that this will not happen under any scenario, with prominent Brexiteers saying that all EU citizens lawfully living in the UK at the moment will be granted the right to stay. There’s a lot of concern, however, about how any future flows of people will be regulated and how this will affect our rights.”

„But I would not expect any significant outflow of Poles should the UK vote to leave and if they do indeed leave many of them will bring significant disposable income back to Poland,” Krupa says.

Under-estimated inflows

In 2004 – when the ex-communist countries joined – other member states imposed “transitional periods” on migration from the east. In Britain, the Blair government decided that uncontrolled emigration from Eastern Europe would benefit the UK economy. The government estimated there would be a net inflow of 13,000 people a year: in the first eight years, to 2012, the net total was 423,000, or 50,000 a year.

“Several issues of fundamental importance – such as what will be needed to cross the border, work in the EU, or visit continental Europe – are left unexplained,” Krupa says. „I’ve heard a lot of stories of people hastily applying for a British citizenship just to stay on the safe side after the referendum and that their status is not affected, whatever the outcome of the vote.”

Poles take it in their stride

Szymanski said the impact would depend on which conclusions London drew from a „leave” vote. „One could imagine that practical consequences of this great (referendum) tension are negligible,” Szymanski said. „I imagine that when it comes to the labor market, despite all the fuss linked to the fact that it is one of the more bothersome issues for British voters, Britain would remain an open country. The impact of Brexit on the number of Poles in Britain may not be as dramatic as it might seem, if judging by the tone of the referendum campaign,” he said.

Remain supporters argue that the UK would be obliged to continue to allow EU migrants to work in Britain if it wanted to retain full access to the bloc’s single market, something which German Finance Minister Schauble said recently would not be an option were the UK to leave.

Ramping up the rhetoric

„The amount of misinformed anti-European rhetoric you have to put up with on a daily basis here just beggars belief,” says Anglo-Pole living in London Greg Goodale.

„This is no longer tabloid fantasy, it’s coming from some other, more parochial place and this stuff is intangible, mystical almost. People say that the country has been ruined, it’s culture and way of life irrevocable transformed. This is all from people who work for foreign-owned companies, come home to their homes which are probably owned by Chinese speculators, put a Chicken Tikka Masala in the microwave and watch an evening of American shows on Netflix,” Goodale says.

„I don’t know if it’s because I’m a white, English-looking man with an RP accent, but whenever I ask anyone about Brexit, people are absolutely certain that they want out and yet understand nothing about the repercussions. You can add that to the widespread ignorance about the EU and its institutions,” Goodale says.

One foot in each country

„We Poles tend to have one foot in each country and travel regularly to our families back home,” Goodale continues. „Any additional formalities post-Brexit will make that harder. I’m more concerned that Brexit will further embolden the British far right to act against EU citizens, with Poles being among the most numerous and therefore likely to be on the receiving end,” he continues. „There are few details of this and very little public discussion. Perhaps the British are unable to openly discuss any form of forced repatriation because it is incredibly messy and potentially dreadful for the country’s reputation. I have seen a number of sources arguing that the economy cannot suddenly cope without this workforce,” Goodale notes.

Debunking stereotypes

Some economists argue that the migrants have produced a net gain to Britain, boosting population, economic growth and tax income. Brexiteers on the other hand say that they have pushed down wages and strained public services. Boris Johnson has said that uncontrolled immigration is forcing down wages for British workers: Tory Brexiteers are enthusiastically on the side of the workers.

„These days the idea that migration from Poland and the former eastern bloc is about plumbers and waiters is an anachronism – we are at every level of the economy,” Goodale say. „Much of the time the cost of training these people was not borne by the British economy, yet we pay taxes here. OK, you pay to educate our children, and we’ll never hear the end of how that; overextending your social services, still subject to austerity cuts to pay for the deficit caused by the banking crisis,” Goodale concludes.

The business end

It is unclear whether fears over a possible Brexit will lead to a rise in applications for British passports among Poles. According to the Home Office, a mere 3,100 Poles who applied in 2014 received passports. “Those who wanted to apply for citizenship have probably already done so already,” labour market expert Dr. Ewelina Wiszczun  told the newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.  Immigrants need to be resident for five years before they can apply. Recent research among Polish students in the UK indicated that 83 percent plan to return to Poland, up 7 percent on last year.

If visas were required, most EU nationals working in the restaurant, hotel and farming industries would not make the cut, according to the current entry standards requirements for non-EU workers, the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory found in a study of the issue. The UK’s retail, restaurant and hotel industries depend on 442,000 EU nationals, 8 percent of their employees, while 6.8 percent of the banking and finance sector’s workers are from other EU countries.

If the British vote to leave the EU and its immigration rate drops by two-thirds, the UK would probably end up with a weaker economy and higher taxes, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research found in a study released in May.


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