Poles in the UK unfairly attacked by the Brexit camp

Having lost the economic and sovereignty arguments, the Brexiteers have taken the lead by launching an immigration scare. EU immigrants and Poles in particular are now in their sights. They do not have a reputation for arriving with large extended families living on benefits. With the cheap flights prevailing nowadays, it is easy for them to commute, visit family in their home countries or indeed go home permanently after a while, which indeed they often do. The proverbial EU immigrant helps to build Britain on construction sites dotted around the country, or is a doctor or nurse helping to reduce queues in the NHS, a waitress, teacher or other young professional. You also get Poles or Portuguese working in say finance, but I guess you are more likely to bump into other EU citizens such as French people, Germans or Italians in the higher echelons of the City, which benefits from their international languages and contacts. Numerous analyses have shown that as all they mostly work, pay taxes, are relatively young and healthy and bring few elderly dependents, they make a significant positive contribution to the British economy. They have compatible European cultures and learn English, if they do not speak it well already, All these different groups are “EU immigrants” being used by Farage and his team, Johnson and Gove, to scare Brits into voting for Brexit.

Here are some key aspects of the Brexit immigration scare :

1. We are told “Over quarter of a million people a year” come from the EU. The Office of National Statistics says that actual net immigration from the EU was 184,000 in 2015 and 174,00 in 2014. Not over a quarter of a million.
2. Brexiteers do not tell you that there was net emigration by British citizens totalling 39,000 in 2015 and 55,000 in 2014. Why not? Because if you look at EU citizens coming minus EU citizens (British) leaving the net inflow was only 145,000 in 2015 and 119,000 in 2014, a lot less scary.
3. Brexiteers do not tell you that most immigrants are from outside the EU. In fact a net 188,000 came in 2015 and 194,000 in 2014. Britain has made the sovereign decision to allow in nearly 200,000 non-EU immigrants per year which it has the right to do, but please don’t blame the EU especially the Poles, just because it suits the Brexit campaign to get everyone to hate the EU!
4. The Daily Telegraph reported in May 2015 that the largest number of immigrants comes from China, then India, equal that year to Spain, then Australia and so forth. Poland is usually somewhere between third and fifth place. Other recent reports confirm that most immigrants come from China with India in second place. For example over 90,000 Chinese and over 80,000 Indians received long term entry visas in the year to March 2016. Britain’s sovereign decision, don’t blame the EU!
5. Leave Campaign leaflets seeking support from Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu speakers say that less immigration from the EU will enable more immigration from outside the EU (Financial Times 20^th May, 2016, page 2). So to improve the prospects of their friends and families coming to the UK they will naturally be tempted to vote Brexit.
6. At the same time Farage, Gove and company are saying that it is their ambition to cut net immigration to the UK to “tens of thousands”, say 50,000.
7. Clearly it is not possible for the Brexiteers to increase total net non-EU immigration of nearly 200,000 and to reduce total net immigration to say 50,000, both at the same time. They presumably have no intention of resolving this convenient (for them) and highly deceitful contradiction.
8. The other Brexiteer tactic is of course to suggest that the EU is somehow going to increase the immigration of Islamic terrorists and criminals to the UK, which is completely untrue. The EU is fighting Islamic terrorism and crime just as the UK is. Brexiteers also forget to remind people that there are already millions of immigrants including 3 million Moslems living in the UK who came earlier because of sovereign British decisions, not because of EU decisions.

The answer is that the Brexit camp is blatantly lying to the public, is ignoring or even pandering to non-EU immigrants, and is stirring up hatred against EU citizens including Poles working in the UK in order to get anti-EU votes at any cost.

Jan Ledóchowski

Sources: Office of National Statistics Migration Statistics Quarterly Report May 2016 http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/may2016

Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11622718/Immigration-nation-where-are-the-Britains-migrants-coming-from-and-why.html