Polish immigrants in the UK went on strike today; some also donated blood and others held a rally outside Parliament all in an effort to highlight their own perceived lack of value by fellow residents of their host nation.
The Guardian touted that “more than 1,000 Polish workers are set to protest.” Only a handful turned up (the rest were probably too busy working) and some of the few who did were actually English Socialists.
The Facebook group set up to organise the protest and strike put it this way:
“The reasons [for the strike] given are the increasing discrimination against Poles and the British desire to raise awareness that without the Polish economy of this country can not stand.” It claimed that the strike would be “a powerful weapon that could paralyze the economy of this country” and the industrial action was “to prove to the British that without the Polish the state would have problems.”
Organisers also claimed that, “as a minority here, we have one of the best opinion, the highest percentage of workers, and did not take part in any riots. We respect British law and culture.”
Interesting to see many English ppl at #polishprotest – claiming gov is to blame for media scapegoating of Polish ppl pic.twitter.com/WTai8nn8se
— Elsa Buchanan (@ElsaABuchanan) August 20, 2015
#polishblood #polishprotest outside Westminster @IBTimesUK @IBTUKPolitics pic.twitter.com/msbClM0KfU
— Elsa Buchanan (@ElsaABuchanan) August 20, 2015
Just over half a million predominantly Catholic Poles now live and work in Britain, with Poland second only to India as the birthplace for foreign-born UK residents.
Despite being one of the biggest exporters of immigrants in Europe, a recent survey for the television station TVN found that two-thirds of native Poles still remaining at home are extremely hostile to immigration.
A study in 2013, by the Centre for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw, found that as many as 69% of Poles do not want non-white people living in their country. The vast majority also believed that immigrants take work away from native Poles and that their presence is detrimental for the economy.
Poland accepts 0.21 asylum seeks per 1000 of the population; compared with 0.5 in the UK, 2.51 in Germany and 8.43 in Sweden.
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