When Poles arrive in Britain, we learn some fascinating things about ourselves. We are, it seems, from a part of the world known as the ‘Eastern bloc’. It is populated by lazy benefits thieves, most of whom want to move to Britain. When the EU flung open Britain’s barriers seven years ago, the stereotype wasn’t entirely false — at least about wanting to move. Hundreds of thousands of Polish workers, students and professionals did come to Britain; I was one of them. Today, though, only a trickle of Poles come over, and a migratory tide is flowing in the other direction. Britons are going to Poland.
Poland has had a tempestuous history, but immigration is a new and exotic phenomenon; we Poles think of our country as a net exporter of people. In the last few years, however, Polish life has settled. We are the only country in Europe that has not suffered from the recession; this year, our economy is expected to grow at twice the speed of Britain’s. Few people realise how much Poland is changing. Except, that is, for the British immigrants flocking east.
‘Poland is wide open for bright ideas and new products,’ says Jamie Stokes, a 40-year-old from London who moved to Krakow three years ago. ‘Poles are still eager to catch up on what they feel they missed in the second half of the 20th century.’ And in a small but rapidly growing business world, ‘you can bump into the kind of people it would take you years and endless negotiations to meet in London’.
Brits who move to Poland with a modest savings will be astonished at what’s on offer. Even after a property boom, a flat in a fashionable part of central Warsaw costs half as much as the average house in England. But the forces that drive immigration are seldom just economic. Love and marriage play their part in tugging people across borders. The 2004 changes which allowed Poles to work anywhere in Europe sent a million of its under-40s abroad to find work. Given some 150,000 Polish women living in Britain, most of them for a two- or three-year period, it was inevitable that a good number would come home with a British man. Some visiting Britons, too, fall in love and stay.
Ian Scattergold, a Warsaw-based building consultant, says that relationships are the driver of the new British rush. ‘Most Brits I know in Poland are married to Polish women, or at least thinking of getting married.’ Polish women strike British men as attractive, he says, because ‘they tend not to go binge drinking and throw up in the street. And there’s a whole feminine, family-oriented, enterprising, strong-minded thing going on as well.’ There are exceptions, he adds. ‘But most Brits here arrive for work reasons, and stay because they have grown to love Poland or fallen out of love with Britain.’
Behind the stories of many of the expats now living in Poland lies a deep-seated unhappiness about the state of Britain. Many say that the values Britain used to hold — family, community, responsibility — are disappearing at home but can still be found in Poland. The streets are safer, crime is significantly lower. So is the divorce rate. Teenage pregnancies are half as common as in England (abortion remains illegal in Poland). International league tables rank Poland’s state schools more highly than England’s, though admittedly that doesn’t say much.
Oddly, but undeniably, the cultural bond between Britain and Poland, which once eased the wartime alliance, now eases the movement of people. Seven years ago, the British economy was roaring and Poland was in the doldrums. Now, it is the other way around. ‘There are just as many opportunities here as there are anywhere else,’ says Scattergold. ‘But there are fewer people and there’s less competition for positions — the UK has so much competition from immigrants. I’d say Poland is a better place to get rich than the UK.’
Dangerous talk. Beautiful women, better living and the opportunity to get rich.
It’s no wonder that when I go home, I’m amazed at the number of immigrants from the Western bloc. I just hope they aren’t here to claim our benefits and steal our jobs.