Polonization of Britain - Tipping Point Confirmed in 2011 Census

telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9738427/Census-2011-Polish-culture-less-unknown-in-the-UK-thanks-to-immigration.html

Census 2011: Polish culture 'less unknown' in the UK thanks to immigration


This article may seem obvious or even anticlimactic for many PF readers and contributors. However, it needs to be pointed out that many generations of those raised and still living in English speaking countries were long engrained with the notion that places like Poland and the region were, to paraphrase the deceased former British Prime Minister and Nazi appeaser Neville Chamberlain, "a far-away country and people of whom we know nothing."

Wars and propaganda, political interference, crude transportation and limited telecommunication often kept English speakers in the dark about what was really going on in the rest of the world. But even when improvements occurred the media and popular culture influenced many to assume that English would be the lingua franca of the world and everyone would strive to become more WASP.

How wrong they were and the article demonstrates that Britain is no longer an exporter and imposer of its values, customs and norms onto other societies. The tide has turned but unfortunately it took until the 21st century for the British public to understand that they are merely one of hundreds of cultures around the world; no worse and certainly no better than any other. I'm confident many younger English speakers will grow to fully comprehend that other countries and peoples are not there simply for them to visit, occupy, exploit or ignore.

Of course other countries are still precisely that and we're a long way from being 'Polonised'. The great unwashed in any society - and Poland in no exception - have a very limited and faulty idea about what goes on outside their little world.

Britain is however multicultural. And cosmopolitan, drawing cultural influences from many sources but above all punching way above our weight and giving far more of our culture back to the world than most places.

Very well said, jon. I'm very proud of our multicultural island.

Hahahahahahaha! What drives a person to make such a claim about his country, and why does he choose a pugalistic metaphor? Bragging about how "tough" Britain is is hilarious! Thanks for the comic relief.


Thanks for the truth.

why not? That's what the Brits did during their hegemony whent they "ruled" the world. Maybe bad Karma is catching up w/ them now. Hey, look, Poland got stiffed back in the 40s by the "wise men" who were sucking up to Stalin. Way back I saw a Canadian program about the Polish soldiers in WW2: They didn't let the Polish to march in the victory parade! While others were marching to the tunes of the Her Majasty band, those poor fellas (Polish pilots) were sitting in a bar...Hadn't the "wise men" sold Poland to the Soviets, Poland mightve been better off economically now, meaning people wouldnt have to flee the country as refugees and/or economic migrants. I'll tell the Brits: suck it up now! It's a pay back time! I hope Poles will flood the island till it tips over! (Literally)

A Pole who returned from UK told be that native white Brits can be extremely racist and when alone or in their own group, they openly show contempt to aliens, even from such countries as India etc.

there's w@nkers everywhere, but people that behave like that are hopefully in the minority. whether British or otherwise..:))

Why do you seem so determined to start an argument?

Hard facts and the topic of this thread, sweetie


Why not? If it fits, use it


Edit

As for bragging, if people are beating a path to your door, and the rest of the world look up to you for culture both high and low, music, science, business, literature, why not?

It's actually nice, at home in PL when people make a point of telling me they're an Anglophile - it happens quite a lot. And knowing Poles, better than you ever will Dessie,I can assure you they mean what they say.

No. I am not going to participate here, I just dropped for a while.

I only wanted to share what I was told and got also surprised at it. The Polish man who I spoke to, an inteligent person and a good observer, said that British multiculturalism is superficial and based on huge amount of politically correct hypocrisy. When not fearing consequences, white Brits freely disdain races, immigrants etc.

Polish migration to the UK within the last decade represents a new phenomenon for the British. Sure people from other countries have settled there too. But you have to admit that the other large immigrant groups have come mainly from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Jamaica, even Ireland, etc. all of which were thoroughly Anglicized thanks to the iron grip of British imperial rule over them in the past. So, not only do they already speak English (nowadays often better than the British themselves) but they are fully aware of British institutions and structures. In other words they know their place.

Furthermore, many are still active members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Any reverse migration from places like Australia, Canada, New Zealand or even America doesn't add any additional flavoring to the mix. Rather it is just adding more milk to the gruel.

If the British were truly proud of their supposed multicultural island then you would see more corresponding representation of it in places like Parliament; the courts; upper ranks of the military and police; managerial levels of finance, art, education, media, etc. But you don't.

You also wouldn't see organizations like the BNP and UKIP in existence nor would you see frequent anti-Polish sentiment expressed in the British media or by the British here on PF. But you do.

That's why Polish migration to the UK is truly a watershed moment for Britain.


Agreed.

Well lets see what happens now the restrictions on Bulgaria and Romania have been lifted. Will there be the same mass influx?
The UK needs immigration, we have an ageing population who are living ever longer and at the same time the native English are simply not reproducing quickly enough.

Where are the young workers? The Polish influx have been mostly young people they have found work because there is work there, simple. They have also helped by producing kids, which is exactly what the UK needs, youth.

the Romanians will mostly go to France and Italy as this is where they can communicate easier, maybe also Spain - I doubt there will be masses of Romanians coming to Britain

I've also heard Poles commenting much the same thing. Of course, a certain percentage of the British population does not accept multiculturalism. The kind of people who vote BNP, for example.

However, the younger and more educated someone is, the more likely they are to accept multiculturalism.

Quite probably, the man you spoke to wasn't a particularly good observer. This observation is often made to excuse the prejudices of Poles in the UK by Poles in the UK.

Why not? Both of those have equivalents pretty well everywhere in Europe.

And Polish immigration to the UK is nothing new - I've known both Poles and people,of Polish extraction all my life - there were at least 50,000 in my county even before EU entry.


That's probably the case. Even if it wasn't, such a vast influx of people in such a short time is bound to have all sorts of effects. In many ways it's a tribute to both the British and the Poles who've come that there hasn't been a major problem and it has gone so well.

Tbh, Jon, I think it best to ignore threads such as these. It's Bieganski, and people who think like him, who have issues, rather than a majority of 'Brits'. If Bieganski is unable to see this for himself. we are under no obligation to help him by wrenching his red and white tinted glasses from off his eyes.

ifor bach
There is a great possibility that Bieganski is US resident, and this thread is a result of previous PF "wars" between Americans and Britons.

Very adroit analysis, Bieganski, maybe the influx of Poles, from a proud republic with no history of domination by the British Empire, will change Britain for the better. They may teach the British what it means to be free.


You haven't answered my question. Why do you believe this metaphor fits?


Why do elderly waitresses always call me that?

Thanks for informing me. Such 'wars' are imbecilic, and I'd prefer not to take part in them.

However thats before over a quarter of a million Polish soldiers defended Britain against the Nazi's and were welcome as refugee's after the war.

Its a sacrifice many British people remember with gratitude and I'm sure you must be honored to host the Poles who made Britain what it is today.


I've got the old membership list, good for a laugh. There is so few of them..

As I remember, they had hardly any members and even quite a few people on the list denied ever joining!

Oh, c'mon, Pete, you gottta be kidding me! The Brits shipped about 20 thou Poles to Canada (and fewer numbers to Australia, South Africa), which is still technically under the Brits! They were not welcome in the UK! And the beloved Polish hero, Gen Anders, was not even given a military pension; he ended up working in some kinda sh..ty factory till his death...That's really kosher, Pete!!! So don't give me that sh..t about England's generosity, okay!?

I hope so as well but history tells us it will take a very considerable amount of time to change some pretty entrenched and contemptuous attitudes in Britain. The reaction by the British at all levels of society towards arriving Poles has not been as hospital as some would prefer us to believe.

We all know by now that infamous moment when a pensioner and Labour supporter Gillian Duffy confronted former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during a re-election campaign with the following tirade: "You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're ... but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?"

guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/28/gordon-brown-gillian-duffy-transcript

A couple of things have always stood out for me. One was that the surname Duffy suggests an ethnic Irish origin. So whether this woman's own ancestors came from Ireland to Britain or she married into a family that did she really had no place to be criticizing others for doing the same. Another thing was her choice expression of asking where "these eastern Europeans" are "flocking from?" Flocking is a pattern of behavior exhibited by birds. There was nothing folksy about what she said. It is very evident that her words were intended to dehumanize those people with whom she cannot personally identify with on a cultural basis.

Of course Brown was later denounced when he was overheard confiding to an aide that he regarded Duffy's comments as bigoted. Her comments were indeed bigoted and Brown's tone of voice was understandably one of exasperation. Nevertheless he paid dearly for his honesty. The British electorate at that time were extremely disappointed with the Labour Party on a broad spectrum of issues of which immigration was only one. Labour didn't lose because Brown criticized a pensioner (n.b., except for their Queen the British do not have a reputation for showing respect or genuine decent care for the elderly in their society). The final straw was that Brown criticized her for being so strongly opposed to immigration which is what truly resonated with the rest of native Britain. Brown's support for immigration was what cost him the campaign.

Surprisingly even the Roman Catholic church in Britain has been critical of the presence of Poles: "The leader of the country's Roman Catholics has sparked a row by accusing immigrants of creating a separate church in Britain. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, urged the Polish community to do more to learn English and integrate into local parishes, claiming the Catholic Church in the UK was in danger of dividing along ethnic lines as the number of Polish-speaking churches rose."

telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1573992/Catholic-leader-claims-Poles-could-split-Church.html

It seems very odd that someone in an institutional position like a Roman Catholic cardinal would take such a eyebrow raising stance towards Christian worshipping Poles but not other immigrant groups who I am sure conduct services in their own native languages as well.

Of course there are more instances of resistance and resentment towards Poles in the UK which I could add but I'll digress because the high profile examples I provided should demonstrate that Britain still needs to make much more significant progress of adapting itself to the presence of Poles in Britain if it is to live up to its own boasts of being a multicultural society.

This thread reminds of a situation when family comes to stay at your house and then start taking liberties. Come on Biaganski - manage your expectations a bit better.

A mass in Latin would be a good idea or half and half.
At the end of the day Poland is the country with major issues in relation to Multiculturalism, at least a member of the BNP was never given a high ranking position in a government, unlike a Nazi that was minister of education in Poland,quite recently.

you should educate yourself better milky - Roman Giertych is no Nazi and he might get at you for calling you that as he is a good lawyer

My understanding is that the RCC discontinued Latin services around the world because rather than being a unifying factor some internal agitators complained that it was a dead language which alienated "the faithful" because more and more worshippers did not understand it because (surprise, surprise) they weren't being taught it anymore in church run schools.

Britain often trails in the bottom ranks for multi-lingual countries. Therefore it would be a better idea for Britain to make Polish compulsory with full government funding in all its schools starting at the earliest level possible and continuing through to a person's teenage years.


We have often been reminded by other posters that Poland has historically been a multicultural society. I know I have shared this very interesting link before here on PF: commonwealth.pl

Today Poland has a vibrant and growing immigrant population and as an EU member many others are free to go to Poland too. Why more don't would need to be addressed in another thread.

Odd that someone would see a call for integration by an international religious body as a criticism of a groups' presence. Unless they were trolling, of course.


At the moment, a fraction of that of the UK, however, with time hopefully more people will come.

It's not the taking of jobs. the crime or the huge welfare bill that's the biggest issue in my mind.

It's their lack of integration. The sheer amount of them flooding in facilitates the "Little Poland".
There's been an increasing in Polish services to service this community.

They're setting up Polish schools for their children.. Why can't their children grow up to be British?
If they're so fiercely proud of being Polish, why don't they stay there? Reminds me of the Muslims and their "Schools"

Why can't they adapt to their new

In some regards they're actually WORSE than a third-worlder.
At least i can go and have a friendly chat with the Indian guy in the newsagents, or the Turkish guys at the local takeaway.

Try getting anything other than "Take your change", "What do you want" from Mrs Malgorzata from the local 'Sklep'.

The only British things they're interested in is our Welfare Benefits, Social Housing and Free healthcare.

Perhaps if the British had ever set an example of this when they themselves migrated in their millions to other countries or when they ruled over them you would have a point. But they never did.